


What a Long Road Home

by Jane0Doh



Category: Supernatural, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Addict Castiel, Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Alternate Universe - The Walking Dead Fusion, Bibliophile Castiel, Bibliophile Daryl, Canon-Typical Violence, Castiel survives, Croats are Walkers, Drug Abuse, Endverse/Walking Dead are in the same universe, Follows TWD canon timeline from episode: s01e03 Tell It To The Frogs and onward, Graphic Amputation, Human Castiel, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Internalized Homophobia, Lucifer Possessing Sam Winchester, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Past Prostitution, Timeline's a little wonky, self-deprecation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-18 05:34:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14846768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jane0Doh/pseuds/Jane0Doh
Summary: Dean had finally gone somewhere Castiel just couldn't follow.Armed with a stolen car, Cas tries to outrun the inner demons that are hunting him down, but they're faster. Upon meeting a group of people fighting to survive in a new world they don't fully comprehend, he can start to see the extent of humanities perseverance beyond what he's read in books. And on common ground with a man as outside the scope of normality as himself, a man who wears woven wings on his back, he can start to let go of decadence, and stop calling it living.Re-write of an old fic posted under an orphaned account. New chapters and updated prose!





	1. The Road So Far

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. It's me. I was wondering if after all these months you'd like to read a fic I've already posted, but was so unhappy with that I orphaned my account and started fresh. But, clearly, I couldn't give up on it, and I felt that there was some good in there somewhere that I just needed to refine and unearth, so here we are. 
> 
> I will be posting chapters as they are edited/updated/written, and when I need a break from my CM/Supernatural crossover. I'm gonna be adding in new stuff, expanding some relationship building and picking off bits of story I felt I kind of shoe horned in, hopefully ending up with a fic that I'm proud of and that I can write the sequel to! If you've never read this before PLEASE, I'm begging you, do not go and read the old one... this one will be better, if you're patient with me!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

It had been 96 hours of driving from South Dakota, and then twenty some odd grueling days of walking in the scorching, Georgia sun. The Impala ran out of gas again on the border of Tennessee and Georgia, and the cars outside of Chattanooga had all been siphoned, not a drop left in any of the tanks Cas came across, no matter how many cars were scattered on the highway.

Attempting to make his way into the city and determined not to leave the car that had become his home over the past few days (the only link he had left to the first friends he had ever really known), he was quickly beset by Croats, just barely escaping his life intact. It was then he resigned himself to the fact that the only thing left for him to do was to start walking, and he’d cried mutely as he walked away from the Impala, leaving her entombed on the highway between rows of sedans and minivans.

At a loss of where to go, Cas had picked a direction and began his slow march onward. What he was marching to, or why he even bothered at all, he couldn’t say. He’d picked south east on his map, deciding he wanted to see the ocean one more time before he died.

He knew in his heart he was going to die. It wasn’t even a question. One of the many finalities he was forced to realized when he fell, his inevitable was what he hated the most. He despised how it loomed over him, a loudly ticking clock that struck down the seconds until he would waste away, wrenched from the mortal coil he’d never wanted to be a part of to begin with. It was agonizing, loud and ever present, so he did his best to drown it in booze, drugs and sex, and for a while it was quiet— but it never truly died. And now, walking through the decimating heat, alone and onto his last few rails of OxyContin, he felt his sweat turn cold as that icy hand of his impending demise was back with a vengeance.

It was his death march he mused, humming Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in time with his steps.

It was a fitting punishment when he ran out of drugs on the side of the road just outside of Atlanta, GA. Pushing on pathetically until his legs began their telltale trembling, heralding a sickness he knew was worse than any angelic punishment he’d even suffered in his entire existence, he moved off the road and into the forest. If he was going to die like an animal, wouldn’t it be more fitting to do so in the woods?

Castiel couldn’t fight it, and really, why should he? He’d scorned his fathers will, had helped to bring about the end of the world, and had been complicit in the rise of Lucifer. And what had he done when faced with humanities last stand, when Dean (his _friend_ ) had asked him to give his life for the chance to put a bullet between the Morningstar’s eyes? He’d stolen Dean’s car and ran.

He was a coward. He was afraid to die, and he couldn’t bear to tell his friend ( _his only_ friend) that for the first time since he raised him from perdition, Castiel just couldn’t follow him.

Dean was dead now, as was every other survivor at Camp Chitaqua.

Lucifer still walked the earth, if the crowds of Croats hunting him in the woods were any indication, and it came as no surprise. Cas knew the second Dean told him his plan that it wouldn’t work. No matter what he thought, no matter how hardened he had become, the Morningstar still wore Sam’s face, and Dean could never shoot his baby brother. Even if he knew in his heart that Sam was long gone, burnt up from the inside out, he couldn’t look into the face of the one he’d once loved so dearly and pull the trigger.

So, Dean was dead and there was officially no one left on earth who knew Castiel’s name.

Slumped against a tree, Dean’s colt in his hand, Castiel knocked off rounds at any Croat that approached, little caring that the crack of his shots would draw more. He was going to die, that much was certain, and though he knew it would be kinder if he turned the gun on himself, sticking the barrel under his chin and squeezing, he was still a coward. What awaited him when he died? Would he go to the pit? To purgatory? Certainly not to heaven, though that would be the worst punishment of all. The not knowing was painful, and the thought of eternity made his brain ache.

He _could_ live as a Croat, though. Surely there were no people left on earth, or he would have found them by now. He had driven across half a continent and had not met another living soul, so what did it matter if he wandered as a mindless, undead killer, if there was no one alive to kill? At least he would be gone, blissfully unaware of all his wrongs, his aching mortality silenced once and since he’d be tethered to a rotting corpse, all the nasty consequences of the afterlife were moot.

Besides, it’s not like he had a soul.

Death by the hands of a Croat would not be swift, but sitting in the blazing sun awaiting it, suffering withdrawal and debating chomping through his tongue just to end the maddening spasms in his limbs… he thought it would be a kindness by comparison.

The gun was growing heavy in his hand by the time he heard the telltale click-click-click of the hammer. It was about time, he mused as he lowered it to the ground, running his fingers over the ivory grip and closing his eyes. He tried to think of Dean, strong and stalwart with a soul so blindingly bright. He tried to think of Sam, tormented, suffering and never truly knowing his worth. He tried to think of all the people at the camp, all those souls now lost. He tried not to think of his brothers and sisters in heaven.

But as he felt the closeness of a lumbering Croat in front of him, the only thing on his mind was how despicable he was.

Who’d have thought some petty self-indulgence would be enough to bring him back to reality?

Had he fallen so far that in the moment of his death, he would rather serve the servants of Lucifer than accept his punishment? Yes, he was pathetic and yes, he’d slipped so far from God’s grace that he could no longer see his majesty in the world around him, but why had he bothered leaving Chitaqua at all if he were just going to give up? He’d decided long ago, when the angels abandoned them and his grace waned that to suffer on earth his was his punishment, his penance. He was an angel of the fucking Lord, and if he knew much of anything, atonement was it. He could not fall to pride like his brother, he could not risk harming others out of cowardice—and he could not die like this.

Opening his eyes, Castiel pulled his blade from its sheath, ready to kill the Croat or accept his sentence, all the while his muscles failed him, sickness and bile rising in his throat. He raised the blade above his head, crying out in agony as he arced his arm, ready to bring it down with the last of his strength into the creature’s skull, when he heard a loud twang, a bolt crunching through the monster’s eye socket cutting him off mid swipe.

“Oh good,” Cas thought as he fell back against the tree, the Croat toppling above him and pinning him to the ground, “A person.” He could feel himself sinking into unconsciousness, his eyes growing heavy as he struggled to breathe beneath the Croat, sickness and heatstroke finally pulling him under. Sweat slid down the sides of his face and he choked on vomit, bubbling past his lips and dribbling down his chin, only just managing to turn his head to the side so he didn’t drown in it. He hardly noticed the body being lifted from his chest, or two rough hands gripping his arms, rolling him and lifting at his clothes, looking for bites and scratches. He thought he should say something witty (Dean would have), but any quippy remark he had died in his throat and came out a garbled groan.

“Shut up, ain’t no point in wastin’ your breath. I got you.”

The voice was gritty and slurred, a sort of southern drawl he had never heard before. This stranger sounded winded, masculine and brusque. He half hoped they wouldn’t judge him to harshly for vomiting all over himself, but then he remembered he was probably covered in so much dirt, sweat and gore that vomit was just another drop in the bucket. Fuck, he thought, I’m so stupid sometimes.

“Yeah, so am I. Shane’s gonna flip his shit when I come back to camp with you lookin’ like this. Are you overdosing, or just jonesing?”

Apparently, he’d said that out loud. Neat. Cas tried again, startled by the unexpected gruffness of his already deep voice, “I ran out of Oxy three nights ago. I’ve been taking Klonopin but it’s just been making me dizzy, and it’s not helping with the violent diarrhea.”

The stranger snorted and coughed out a laugh, “Fucking gross.” He was suddenly hefted onto broad shoulders, ass in the air and head tilted down toward the ground. He might have at one point felt humiliated by this forced supplication, but in that moment, he was just relieved he wouldn’t have to be walking, “Look, I’m gonna take you to a place. A camp. There’s folks there that won’t mind taking you in. They’re okay people, we just might have to hide that you’re a junky, y’hear?”

He nodded mutely, his head bouncing off his saviors back, “Thank you.” He managed to mutter before slipping out of consciousness.

“Don’t bother thanking me yet," was the last thing he heard before his world spun once and disappeared.


	2. Lois Street NW

“What the fuck are you doing?” Daryl chastised himself as he climbed through the trees, a filthy, unconscious stranger on his shoulder as he carried his very ineffectual crossbow in one hand. There was no way he could wield it, not with this guy hanging limply off him, no matter how much of a lightweight he was.

Daryl frowned, hefting the stranger a little higher on his shoulder. He was tall, just about the same height as Daryl but nowhere near the same weight. With his hand under his ass he could feel the bones of his thighs, and his knobby knees were digging into Daryl’s stomach with each step he took. He was much lighter than he had any right to be, and Daryl could see in his gaunt face that he’d gone a long time without eating.

He also knew this man was an addict. He’d confirmed it himself, but Daryl had known the second he’d seen the telltale trembling in his limbs. Daryl had never touched the harder stuff personally, but he’d seen it cleave through Merle many times. His brother would be free of it for a while, thanks to either a stint in prison or running out of money, but it never mattered in the long run. Merle would always go crawling back, sooner or later. At least this guy seemed to not be injecting, but still, that monkey’s gonna climb one way or another.

So, he knew the chills, the aches and the pains, ‘cause he’d helped Merle through the worst of it. He knew the anger and the anxiety that followed as well, and he wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy. It was the most awful part, really. The physical symptoms pass in time but coupled with the depression, it can make a person feel like they’ll never be right again. Maybe that’s why this guy was willing to let himself become walker chow, he mused.

What a way to go.

Daryl could feel the colt shift in his pocket as he shifted the man’s duffle on his other shoulder, already out of break. The sun was beating down through the trees and Daryl cursed as sweat rolled down his forehead into his eyes. He wasn’t gonna make it back to the camp through the woods, not so over encumbered, which meant he needed to take the trail up to the quarries edge. Unfortunately, this also meant there’d be no sneaking in through the back, and he was gonna need to face Shane head on, Rick too.

Fighting against his quickly tiring muscles as he approached the hill, Daryl groaned when the stranger turned his head, vomit that had been drying to his chin smearing across Daryl’s shirt. He grimaced, trying to breathe through his mouth to save his nose as he wondered again where the hell this guy had come from. He was dirty as sin, covered in blood and muck, hair greasy and matted. He had a scruffy kind of beard, one borne out of neglect and deeply sunken cheek bones, but though he was thin he was strong, whipcord muscle stretched under his skin suggesting this guy had been walking, maybe running, for a long time. Should throw him in the water, Daryl considered, might help him feel better. _Might wake him up, too._

“Daryl!?”

The shout came as a question, so they must not have seen what he was carrying just yet. T-Dog and Andrea were the first down the hill, immediately helping him shift the stranger off his shoulder and onto theirs. All three of them got a good long look at the man’s face, as messy as it were, and Andrea cast Daryl a cautious glace while pulling the guys arm around her neck. Daryl shrugged her off. There was only one person he really had to answer to here and that was—

“Daryl, who the hell is that?”

Rick. Thank fuck it was Rick and not Shane. “Dunno,” Daryl said with a shrug, “just found him in the woods, bout to be walker chow. He’s got no bites, but I think he’s heat sick. Looks like he’s not had any food or water for a few days.” That’ll explain away the sickness and the aching at least. Daryl held on to the stranger’s bag tightly. He’d check it later to see if this guy had some ID… or more drugs.

“So, you brought him back here?” Ah, there was Shane.

“Of course I did. Am I just gonna leave him alone to die? Hell no,” Daryl spat on the ground, glaring at Rick as he added, “I ain’t like you. He’s sick, and not the wrong kind of sick neither.”

“Shane,” Rick held up his hand to stop his old partner before they could get into it, “Daryl’s right. We’re still people, we still help each other. If it weren’t for that family that helped me when I got out of the hospital, I would never have made it here.” Ever the diplomat, Rick walked over the stranger, grasping his chin and maneuvering his head around, looking for injuries of the biter kind. “Get him into the RV for now. We’ll try and wake him up, get some water into him and see what he has to say. Maybe he knows something we don’t.”

In the fading light of the late evening sun, the four of them got him into the RV with very little difficulty, T-Dog commenting on how skinny he was while Andrea gave him the stink eye. Daryl made to follow, but Shane intercepted him, stopping him with a hand to his chest.

“Don’t touch me man!” Daryl spat reactively at the touch, jumping back and glaring, “What the hell do you want?”

“Don’t you ever, _ever_ pull this shit again.” Shane kept his voice low, this conversation just between the two of them. He moved his hand forward again, ignoring Daryl’s outburst and jabbing two fingers firmly into his solar plexus, “You have no idea who that guy is. He could be a murderer, a pedophile, a fucking cannibal for all we know, and you have no right to bring him in here, to our home. You do something this stupid again, you’ll answer to me, not Rick.”

Not giving Daryl time to reply, Shane turned on his heel and stomped back to the camp, the choice insults Daryl had lined up dying on his tongue anyway when Rick called for him. The strap on his shoulder slipped, reminding him of the bag on his shoulder and he stopped short, looking down at it and then back up at the RV. He didn’t know what this man had on him, but he knew the others would probably want to go through it to make sure he was safe. So, before stepping into the truck, he ducked around it and dropped to an easy squat, opening the duffel when he was sure no one was watching.

The first thing he noticed was this guy had a fuck ton of books. There were at least seven novels in the bag, all but one complete mysteries to him. The one that he recognized he’d been reading himself before all this shit hit the fan: _The_ _Grapes_ _of_ _Wrath_. It was dog eared and well loved, and as Daryl flipped through it he couldn’t help but smile at the handwritten notes in the margins, small, curling script that tapered down at the edges, the stranger’s thoughts on this or that passage. A circled line stuck out amongst the others, having been highlighted as well. “’How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past?’” he read aloud under his breath.

Placing it back in the bag, Daryl paused, frowning at the thick, glossy sheet of paper sticking up from the top of the book: a picture. Pulling it out and folding out the creases Daryl instantly recognized the man he had just rescued standing with a group of other men in the photo, all as haggard as the next, at a place called Camp Chitaqua in South Dakota.

“South Dakota? He made it here from fucking South Dakota?” Daryl couldn’t believe it. No way he walked this far. He must have had a car at some point. Flipping the picture, he found the names of all the men scrawled on the back in order of left to right, followed by a date. Following the names, Daryl found the strangers name easily. “Castiel, huh?” he murmured, clicking his tongue and tossing the picture back in the bag, “what a fruity fucking name.”

The rest of the contents were normal enough: more books (12 in total, one of them an old, battered journal), a change or two of clothes, a hat, a jacket, an electric razor with a solar battery pack (he was gonna have a hell of a time keeping people away from that), a toothbrush and toothpaste, a flask (empty) and a strange, silver blade. He found pills at the bottom of the bag, but nothing other than two Klonopin and a bottle of Advil, so with a deep breath Daryl zipped the bag back up, deciding it was safe enough to head inside.

“What the hell were you waiting for?” Rick had his back turned, watching Dale try to slip pillows under Castiel’s head without moving him too much, “We got him settled but he doesn’t seem to be waking up.”

“I was looking through his shit,” Daryl answered honestly, not seeing any cause to lie now that he knew there’s nothing too elicit in Castiel’s things. He heaved the bag onto the fold out table, sending pens and books scattering in the process, too busy rifling through the bag once more to notice the dirty look Dale sent him on his way out of the RV, “His names Castiel, and he’s from a camp in South Dakota. Here.”

Thrusting the picture towards Rick, he waited for him to take it. “South Dakota?” Rick repeated disbelievingly, “How the hell did he end up here? And why?”

Daryl shrugged at the question, though he was in complete agreement. It was a hell of a trek; before the world ended, it would take about a day or so to drive from South Dakota to Georgia but now, with the highways all clogged and shit going down everywhere? He would have had to take the back roads, and who knows what he saw on that journey.

“He was walking when I found him, looked as if he’d been at it for a couple days. He must have lost his car somewhere along the way. He also had this,” Daryl laid the ivory gripped colt on the table, “Not loaded, no ammo. I saw him fire off his last shots at the walker that was coming at him. Oh, and these too.” First the hunting knife Daryl had taken from his thigh holster, then the strange silver blade went down on the table to join the gun, “Fucking strange looking knife if you ask me. Probably don’t do any good either. Looks more like a decoration than anything.”

“Well it’s sharp,” Rick pointed out as he lifted it, running his fingers perpendicular along the edge of the blade, “So if it is a decoration, then he found a way to make a weapon out of it. This is a really nice gun, too.” He dropped the blade while he was talking, and switched it for the pistol, “Custom colt, M1911… military issue. And it’s engraved,” He rotated the gun in his hands, showing Daryl the name carved into the bottom of the grip, “John Winchester. Who’s John Winchester?”

“None of the guys in the picture. Maybe a relative or something?” Daryl asked, “Looks like a hand me down.”

“Maybe. Either way, we need him to wake up so we can see if he’s kosher.” Rick gave him a pointed look and Daryl felt his hackles begin to raise. He bristled, jutting out his lower lip and ready to snap back, but there was no judgement in Rick’s voice, only concern. When he relaxed, Rick added “I meant what I said. I’m glad you saved him instead of just letting him die, but we do need to be careful. We don’t know him from Adam, so no full run of the camp until we know for sure he’s okay.”

Nodding, Daryl leaned back against the table and swivelled his neck so he was looking over Rick’s shoulder at the bed, “Fair enough. I can watch him when he comes to. No point in forcing anyone else to be his shadow when I’m the one who thought to bring him back.”

Rick might have kept talking after that, but Daryl didn’t hear it. He was too busy staring past him at the man on the bed, at Castiel. He looked small at that moment, swallowed by pillows and blankets, so skinny he barely sunk down in the mattress. His brow was furrowed and his breathing was sharp and shallow; Daryl could hear it over Rick’s voice. Sweat was beading on his cheeks, his legs and fingers jumping almost imperceptibly as the junk-sickness coursed through him, and Daryl supposed he was gonna feel like hell when he woke up, but it was better than being dead. Looking on the bright side though, at least he was finally getting some rest. The poor guy looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

Just as Daryl was about to look away, however, Castiel woke up.

He didn’t sit up fast, but he didn’t rouse slowly either. He was just laying down one minute, and in the next he had quietly slid his arms up the mattress, pushing himself up onto his elbows as he blearily took stock of his surroundings. Looking discretely around the room, his head merely rolling along his shoulders and his eyes flicking across each surface he could find, the stranger seemingly catalogued everything he could see until his gaze finally met Daryl’s.

The light from the window shone across his face, illuminating half and casting the rest in shadow. He looked odd, like he didn’t belong there, reclining on a bed in a strangers RV. It was his posture, Daryl discerned, it was almost wrong, too fluid. Every motion was smooth, running one long line at the top of his head and ending at the toes of his boots, and when he moved one muscle, the others moved in reply, like ripples on the surface of a lake. He moved like a wildcat, lithe and graceful and with precision that seemed otherworldly. Daryl had never seen a human move like that, and even though he was sick and obviously suffering, he was poised.

His eyes were blue, but not blue like Daryl’s, which were ice cold and sharp. They were blue like pictures he’d seen of the ocean, deep, dark and reflective. They were challenging, the same eyes he’d seen on predators like owls and foxes when he ran into them in the woods, and they issued a warning: I will defend myself. He was weak and sick, surrounded by strangers and yet this Castiel was still cool and collected, self-sure in mind at least, even though his body trembled and ached.

It was impressive, but not one to back down from a challenge or to show weakness, Daryl met it head on. He stared right back at this stranger, standing straight and shutting Rick up in the process. Castiel met his gaze and held it, not backing down until Rick started walking towards him. Outnumbered, Castiel just laughed mirthlessly, flopping down onto his back again, sending pillows bouncing as he covered his face with his hands.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?” Rick asked gently, now standing beside the bed, his back to the wall and all his attention on Castiel.

“Just peachy,” Castiel groaned from behind his hands, slowly sliding them down his face so they only covered him mouth, catching Rick in his wild gaze, “I feel like I was hit by a truck and then set on fire.”

“And you ain’t bit?”

“No.” Struggling to sit up on shaking arms, Castiel managed to get himself halfway up against the wall of the trailer, “I would have put a bullet in my head if that were the case. I’m not turning into a Croat.”

“Croat?” That was new. Daryl had heard them be called zombies, biters, walkers, but never Croats, “You mean the walkers?”

A somber nod. “When people started getting sick, the word ‘Croatoan’ started popping up all over Sioux Falls,” Cas shrugged, puffing up the pillows before shoving a few behind his back, “A few of the guys were superstitious, so we started calling the ones that turned Croats. From the story of the Roanoke colony?” Rick and Daryl nodded at the same time, but Rick paused to give Daryl a curious look before continuing that sent his blood boiling.

He hated that. The whole camp assumed he was stupid or something, on account of him and Merle living in the sticks, but that wasn’t the case at all. Sure, he never finished school, but that’s ‘cause his dad pulled him out. They had no way to get into town once his daddy moved them out to the woods, and he’d insisted Daryl was needed at home (someone had to pick up the cleaning and shit once his mom died, and Lord knows Merle wasn’t gonna do it), so around 13 he just kind of stopped going. No one ever came looking for him neither.

That didn’t mean he was simple, though. He was an avid reader, and Merle would never come home from wherever the hell the spent his days without bringing Daryl a new book. He knew that Merle was probably stealing them, but even though he would always make a crack about Daryl being a geek or a useless layabout he always handed them over in the end, always with a good-natured smile. He was kind of proud of Daryl for not being like him or his old man, and Daryl was always thankful to him for it.

That was what he did. It was how he got by. Didn’t have no television, just a shitty AM/FM radio that got poor reception, and whatever tapes people would leave at the house. When he started driving into nearby towns as he got older he started collecting CD’s, but they didn’t have much for way of entertainment besides drugs and booze. So, Daryl read.

He started off reading non-fiction, seeing no point in filling his head with useless crap and fantasy lands. But when Merle brought him back a well-loved copy of _The Hobbit_ that he swiped from a friend’s house, Daryl figured he might as well give it a shot. He fought through it, the first half of it dragging on painfully, but once he did he was hooked. He asked Merle two days later when he was finished to pick him up more like it.

He spent his childhood, his teenage years and a good deal of his adult life immersed in second-hand paperbacks. He started with fantasy and science fiction, moving along into classic American novels. From there he went to English literature: The Romantics, Restorations and Victorians. Poetry and plays. Political discourse. By the time he was 19 he was biking his ass into town and living at the library, buried in the reference stacks and on a first name basis with the folks that worked at his second home.

So, when Rick shot him a look that asked him if he really understood, or if Daryl needed him to fill him in later, it cut him like a knife. When Glenn earnestly asked him if he needed help reading instructions, like he was fucking illiterate, it set his heart racing. When Andrea looked at him pityingly as he grimaced at the camps pathetic collection of books, he wanted to scream. He wanted to say something, wanted to shout it out the window at the whole damn camp.

But the new guy beat him to it.

“Hey, I think he’s got it.” Castiel was still a twitchy mess on Dale’s bed, but he was staring Rick down, “No need to be patronizing.” And just like that, Daryl’s angry, nervous energy was gone. And before Rick could say anything in response, Castiel continued, “My friends and I had a camp in South Dakota. We were held up there for a long time. We had food, water, medicine, even a doctor… but it all fell apart.”

His demeanor changed by the second. Looking down at the hem of his dirty shirt, pulling at loose threads and curling in on himself. With his knees pulled up near his chest, he gulped in a calming breath, warily watching as Rick asked, “How?”

“I tried to tell them, I really did. But there was no convincing them.” Cas huffed a cynical laugh, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his palms, little realizing how crazy he sounded, how little sense he was making, “But I was just a useless fuck up. And Dean, Dean was their fearless leader. A born commander, he saved their lives so often I couldn’t even begin to recount them all. They wouldn’t listen to me, and when Dean found out what I was doing, that I was trying to ‘subvert his authority,’” he let go of the sheets long enough to curl his fingers into air-quotes, and Daryl snorted despite himself, earning him a glare from Rick, “after he found that out— well, it wasn’t good.”

“Tell them _what_?” Rick demanded, and Cas looked up at him wide eyed, as though he only just realized he hadn’t told him the how story.

“I tried to tell them it was a suicide mission,” Cas said slowly, enunciating each syllable in a way that might have come across as patronizing, had it not been so obvious he was barely cognizant, “Dean wanted to take wipe out another group that had set up shop near us, and he rallied the entire camp to help him. Problem was, they were better armed and armoured… military, I guess you could say. It was a lost cause.”

“Wait,” Rick held up his hand, his expression contorted in disgust, “they were people? He wanted all of you to _murder_ people?”

Castiel nodded, “Something like that.” He frowned, tilting his chin down and looking at Rick with upturned eyes, “They weren’t _good_ people, if you catch my drift.”

And judging by the way he paled, Rick did. “So,” he said, coughing into his fist to clear his throat, “you couldn’t convince anyone to go with you, so you… what? What did you do? Why are you _here_?”

“I ran,” Cas said, imploring them to listen and understand, his guilt so palpable it hovered in the spaces between them, “I stole Dean’s car and I drove east. Don’t ask why, because I don’t know. I just needed to get away, and since then, I’ve been on the road for almost a month. The car broke down in Tennessee, right outside of Georgia state lines, and there was no gas for miles. I walked the rest of the way here.”

“You walked from Tennessee to here?” Rick couldn’t hide his disbelief if he tried, “That’s like—”

“Twenty-two days.”

“That’s insane, where the hell were you going?”

Looking out the window, Castiel smiled sadly. He leaned back once more, his hands at the hem of his shirt, and Daryl wanted nothing more than to smack his hands away, the fidgeting putting him on edge, “I thought this was it, you know? End of days. I had no food or water, and worst of all, I was alone. I decided that I wanted to see the ocean again, one last time, before I died.” Sitting up, he looked out the window properly, leaning so he could scan the area just outside the trailer, “I guess I didn’t quite make it, did I?”

“No, sorry. You still got some ways to go if you want to see the ocean,” Rick said as he sat on the foot of the bed, though Castiel didn’t even notice. He just stared outside, the sun hitting his face in full, illuminating every speck of dirt and gore.

“I guess I could still go. I don’t want to burden you or yours, but really, I am thankful.” Cas turned his head as he spoke, and it wasn’t to look at Rick. It was to look at Daryl, “Thank you. For saving me, for taking me in when you had no idea who I was. I could have been dangerous, but you still helped me and I can’t thank you enough, um—”

“Daryl,” Rick answered for him, looking between them and feeling too stuck in the middle for his liking. Standing up, he assumed his place at Daryl’s side, “and I’m Rick.”

“Daryl and Rick. You have my sincerest gratitude.”

“Don’t mention it.” Rick said, “Look, if you want to keep going you can, and if you decide you don’t want to leave, we won’t kick you out. We have the space, we have the food, and if you managed to make it across the state on foot, we could probably use your skills. But we do have some ground rules.”

Castiel nodded in understanding, “Shoot.”

“First,” Rick said, counting off on his fingers, “we need eyes on you at all times. Not forever, but just until we get to know the kind of person you are. Second, no violence, no exceptions. We can’t very well fight the dead if we’re fighting ourselves, too. And lastly,” he paused, pointing his finger at Cas to emphasize this point, about the others, “you will pull your weight. Does that sound good to you?”

The two men jumped with a start as Castiel suddenly laughed loudly, throwing his head backwards with a grin that split his face ear to ear. “Oh, thank god,” he moaned, running his hands down his face, hesitating over his lips and trying to reign in his amusement, “I thought you were going to fix me up and send me on my way. You two are the first humans I’ve met since I left South Dakota, please, I can’t bear to be alone again. I would love to stay, and I will help in every way that I can to repay you, thank you!”

Rick, not accustomed to such an outpouring of praise, shuffled on the spot. “Well I’m glad to see you’re agreeable. Now we won’t be able to keep you in here, but we do have an extra tent and a sleeping bag you can use. When you’re feeling better, we can get you up to the highway, loot some cars and see if we can’t get you a pillow to go with it,” he coughed once into his hand, a nervous habit apparently, and looked at Daryl, “I think that’s enough for tonight, it’s getting late. I’ll let the two of you set everything up, we’ll save the introductions for tomorrow.”

He made to leave the RV, but paused in the door, holding up a finger and turning around as he added, “Oh! One more thing. You can have your knives back, but Daryl is gonna hold onto your gun.”

“What?” Castiel snapped, his brow furrowing, “Really? I can’t have my gun?”

“A knife will do in the camp.”

“But what if it’s not enough?”

“Castiel, we don’t know you. We’re sharing our food and our space with you. If you want to stay, you give up the gun.”

“Just call me Cas, please. And I can’t let you take it, it was Dean’s!”

Rick was not a man without compassion. He could clearly see how much this Dean had meant to Castiel, what with him having his gun, his car… hell, he was willing to bet the clothes on his back had been Dean’s at one point. But he couldn’t just let a stranger wander the camp with a loaded gun. He had people to think about, a wife and son he only just got back, and Shane would flip his lid if he saw Castiel walking around with that colt on his hip, so he held firm, “Cas then. And it’s not up for debate. Once we trust you, you’ll get it back. Until then, we hold on to it. Either deal with it, or you can move on.”

“I’ll have it on me the whole time,” Daryl piped in for the first time in a long while, effectively cutting off any retort that Cas might have had, “and I’ll be around you the whole time, too. If you need it, you’ll know where it is. I promise to take care of it.”

Where the hell did that come from? Cas was a stranger, just as Rick had said, so why was he being nice to him? He wasn’t nice to anyone, not the people in this camp he had been living with for months, or even his own flesh and blood brother. So why was he being kind to Cas, when all he had done was almost die in the woods and force him to carry his sorry ass through the bush?

All it took was just a moment of really looking at him to answer that question. Rick might have been attributing it to sunstroke, as would the rest of the camp, but Daryl knew the signs withdrawal when he saw it and Cas was in the thick of it. He was quivering and tense, and every time his skin brushed up against the rough fabric of the blankets he grimaced in pain, those small rasps of wool probably feeling like electric shocks. He was sweating, his nose was running, and he was swallowing compulsively to deal with the flood of saliva in his mouth. He looked pale. He looked like he was going to hurl. He looked like he was dying. And Daryl recognized every harrowing bit of it.

“C’mon,” he said suddenly, breaking the other two out of their reverie. He looped Castiel’s colt into the back of his jeans, pulled his duffel onto one shoulder and offered the other hand to Cas, “Let’s go, don’t got much light left and I’m beat from carrying your fat ass up that hill.”

Cas snorted, sarcastically but with no bad blood, “Fat, that’s a good one. There was a time when there was some fat on my ass… but then the camp ran out of Little Debbie’s,” he took Daryl’s hand and smiled, a gentle quirk of his lips, “Chuck walked around completely despondent for hours. You’d have thought someone had died.”

Grinning a little wider when he earned a chuckle from Rick, Cas pulled to his feet, immediately leaning on Daryl’s side. Rick looked them up and down, quirking his brow in askance to which Daryl shook his head. He didn’t need any help, Cas was mostly on his feet and despite his wise crack he weighed next to nothing. As they walked out of the RV, he reminded himself to get the man some dinner before he keeled over for good.

“I’ll set you up in my tent with your shit, so you don’t have to sit awake while I get the other one put together,” Daryl said, hefting Cas’ arm up his shoulders and staggering them down the steps of the RV, “We’ll just move my stuff out for now, and no you can’t have my pillow, so don’t even ask.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Castiel sighed as he stumbled along beside him, leaning heavily into Daryl’s shoulder. He could feel the heat radiating off Cas’ body, sweltering even through his clothes, which were filthy even by Daryl’s standards. _Guy must feel like shit_ , Daryl thought, glancing at Cas out of the corner of his eye and seeing fatigue practically oozing from his every pore, _maybe after he gets some sleep he won’t look like death warmed over_.

Sitting Cas at the door to his tent, Daryl unzipped it, waving at his meagre belongings inside. “Pass those out, and it’s all yours,” he said, and Cas did as he was told, handing them out one by one. Over his shoulder and through the trees, Daryl spied a few of the other survivors peeking over at them, curious as to who this new addition was, and he scowled at them, hoping to shoo them away. They were a nosy bunch, and even if this guy didn’t mind dealing with their pestering, nagging questions, Daryl did.

“Thank you for letting me sleep here,” Cas murmured, barely able to keep his eyes open, “we can switch back in the morning if you like.”

“S’fine,” Daryl said, lowering his head as he silently accepted his things, ignoring the way Cas kept trying to catch his eye, “it’s too big for me anyways, and you’ve got twice as much crap. The other ones smaller, so I’ll keep it.”

“If you’re certain.” Cas looked even more awful than before, hunched over and seeming too small in the opening of the tent. With his things slung in his bag on his shoulder, Daryl turned to leave without another word when Cas called out tentatively, “It’s Daryl, right?”

Daryl paused mid step and nodded.

“I meant what I said back there,” Castiel spoke softly, and when Daryl looked back at him he was worrying his lower lip between his teeth, looking earnestly up at him with those big blue eyes as wide as saucers, his brow furrowed severely, “You saved my life. Thank you, thank you so—"

“Stop that,” Daryl snapped, cutting him off before the praise got to be too much to bear. 

Cas snapped his jaw shut, “Sorry.”

“Stop that, too,” Daryl chided him, shifting awkwardly on his feet, bouncing from one to the other. Cas was still just _staring_ at him, his gaze far too intense and seriously uncomfortable, so in an attempt to escape, Daryl gestured to a small clearing off to their left. “I’m gonna set up right over there, so no funny shit alright? I’m a light sleeper, I’ll know if you’re fucking around…” a thought occurred to him and he trailed off, watching Castiel and sucking in a sharp breath before asking, “Do you want something to eat? Drink? I know you probably don’t wanna right now, but it’s just gonna get worse if you starve yourself.”

Well, that got him to stop staring at least. Cas looked down at his feet, ashamed at the mere mention of the habit he was kicking. “I’m scared I’m going to puke if I eat anything,” he said with a frown, pinching the bridge of his nose and wincing in pain as a particularly nasty tremor shook his skinny frame, “I could use some water though.”

A man of few words, Daryl turned on his heel and stalked through the trees, leaving Castiel in the mouth of the tent and blinking after him owlishly. Luckily the sun had all but set during their time in the RV, and most of the denizens of their camp were asleep, but just his luck, Andrea and her sister were sitting by the fire, snacking on chips and chatting.

“Daryl,” Amy called to him, but Daryl blasted by her, digging in one of their coolers for a bottle of water and, after a moment’s thought, a small packet of crackers. “Daryl,” she called again, a little more pointedly as he walked past them, sighing in frustration when he ignored her again, asking, “What the hell’s his problem?”

“He’s an asshole,” Andrea grumbled, just loud enough that he could hear her as he walked away, “least there’s only one of them to contend with now.”

Fuck, that stung.

Daryl bristled, gritting his teeth as he tried to reign in his temper. Since Merle was gone, the amount of people in his corner had dwindled from sometimes-one to zero, and he learned first hand the kind of treatment he could expect from Shane and Good Guy Rick Grimes when he snapped. A choke hold and a stern talking to, his weapons taken away and a stint in what basically amounted to a camp time-out.

But he couldn’t help getting hurt by the cutting words of the people around him, even if he knew he, in some part, deserved them. Yeah, he’d been a dick, but Merle brought that out in him and their initial perception of Daryl had been the same as his brother: redneck trash. How could he contend with that, or even begin to change their minds, when they’d written him off the second they met him?

Though, to be honest, his temper didn’t help matters much.

Managing to ignore them in the end and brush off their snarky comments, Daryl strode up to where he’d left Castiel, glad to see he hadn’t wandered far. The guy was still sitting in the lip of the tent, his eyes unfocused as he stared at one spot in the ground, a sure-fire sign he was gonna hurl. So, as Daryl approached he sidestepped the spot Cas was staring at, crouching down beside him and handing him his bottle of water.

Castiel took it gratefully, but much to his chagrin Daryl dropped the crackers in his lap and told him simply, “Eat.”

Cas raised his brow challengingly, “Seriously?”

“Eat.”

“No.”

Daryl shrugged, flopping down onto the ground and sitting with his legs crossed, “I’m not leaving until you eat something.”

He had to hand it to him: Cas gave his all to being stubborn. Placing the crackers and water bottle beside his legs, Cas mirrored Daryl’s position, crossing him legs and settling in. He tilted his head back, squared his jaw and huffed loudly through his nose, his blue eyes narrowing as he stared Daryl down. It might have been intimidating were he feeling one-hundred percent, but it fell apart when the tremors that were wracking Cas’ body got to be too much, when he broke out in a cold sweat and his eyelids began to droop with exhaustion.

And eventually, he broke.

“Oh, for the love of…” Castiel trailed off into a grumble, ripping open the package and shoving both crackers in his mouth at the same time, mushing them so they fit, crumbs falling to the ground and sticking to his lips. “Satisfied?” he groused over a mouthful of crackers, bits flying out of his mouth as he spoke.

Daryl, trying to remain abjectly unaffected by Castiel’s lack of etiquette, waited until he had swallowed them both before giving him a curt nod, standing up in one fluid motion and retreating to his tent. He heard Castiel shout goodnight, but he refused to turn around, lest Cas spotted the grin that was tugging at the corners of his lips, Castiel’s stubbornness having taken him by surprise.

It was endearing, and that alone was odd. How a grown man throwing a hissy fit like a twelve-year-old girl tickled his funny bone, Daryl couldn’t say. But he kind of knew how Cas felt. He knew what it was like stuck in a strange place with strange people telling you to do things you don’t really want to do but needed to. He had become well acquainted with that feeling of powerlessness, wherein you’d do anything, take hold of any little act of defiance so long as you could still prove your self-sufficiency. It was the same way he felt when Shane had wrestled him to the ground after finding out this new guy left his brother to die up on a roof: useless and angry.

So yeah, Daryl got it.

Didn’t mean he was gonna let Cas off easy next time, though.

* * *

With the flap of his borrowed tent zipped up behind him and the last of his earthly belongings stuffed into a duffle bag on the ground, Cas was finally, agonizingly alone with his discomfort. “Shit,” he grumbled, his words nothing more than a broken moan as he crumpled forwards, wrapping his arms tight around his abdomen and laying his forehead against the ground. If it was cool to the touch Cas couldn’t tell, the sickness that wracked his body burning so hot that all he could feel were the itching, stabbing pangs of liquid fire that seemed to nip at his skin from the inside out, forcing his muscles to seize at incalculable intervals and his head to pound.

He'd never felt pain like this before. He remembered thinking when he broke his leg last year that the agony he’d experienced then was the pinnacle of pain. Sitting alone in his cabin, trying to numb the ache that seemed to echo through his ruptured bones with expired Percocet’s, he’d convinced himself to look on the bright side: at least nothing could possibly hurt more than his leg did in that moment. But that was one of those bitter sweet laws of humanity, one of the rules of give and take his jack-ass father hardcoded into them upon creation, as he’d come to realize a few months later when he was shot in the shoulder by a startled civilian. Just when you think you’ve experienced the worst thing imaginable, that nothing in your life could ever touch the agony you felt in that moment, something else comes along to break you in half, just to prove that you’re wrong. 

Cas groaned pitifully, turning his head and rubbing his cheek against the rough floor of the tent, the scrape of it against his filthy cheek a welcome distraction from the coiling nausea in his belly. He found himself wondering, and not for the first time either, why people would create something like this? Why would anyone invent a drug that could make you feel so blissfully uncaring, that erased every worry, every twinge of pain and every nagging existential thought, only to have it drop you on your ass on the otherside, lower than you ever were before?

That settles it, he decided, gritting his teeth against the bile that was rising in his throat. Heroin had to have been one of his dad’s bright ideas, too.

The sadist.

Okay, he had to move. He wasn’t going to feel better anytime soon, he’d left his stash in the car twenty-some-odd days ago, and he could hazard a guess that this camp wouldn’t be stocked to the gills with narcotics like Chitaqua was. There wasn’t going to be a quick fix this time, and though the realization forced a sob from his throat, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, at the very least it lit a fire under his ass. If he was alone, then he was going to need to take care of himself, suffering through the worst of his withdrawal without Chuck there to make sure he was eating, or Ian to wipe the sweat from his brow and clean up his vomit.

Jesus, he was spoiled.  

Forcing himself up onto his knees, he whimpered when his muscles cried out in agony, lashing whipcord tight around his bones and stretching at his already achy, feverous skin. Sleep, he needed sleep. He hadn’t slept in days and he was exhausted, barely able to keep his eyes open as he’d talked to that strange, grumpy archer, so the first order of business was to lay out his sleeping blanket. While he was moving and uncomfortable, he figured he should change his clothes as well, peeling off layers of sweat and gore-soaked fabric until he was crouched in the middle of the tent, buck naked and shivering.

How the hell was he suddenly cold?! There was no rhyme or reason to these symptoms, and they seemingly only existed to cause him maximum suffering, sprinting from one extreme to another, back and forth at a speed that made his head spin. That hot, aching fever pulsed beneath his brow and threatened to pop his eyes right out of his skull, his stomach clenching as he pulled on a clean(ish) pair of boxers and a tee-shirt, writhing around the intrusive crackers he’d forced down his gullet. As he clicked on his electric lantern, the urge to vomit became overwhelming, and even the water he chugged from the bottle didn’t help to cool him.

This is worse than hell, he thought hysterically, sweating liberally and soaking his new, dry shirt. Begging “please, make it stop” under his breath to whatever nefarious pagan god might be nearby with their ears on, he crawled onto his makeshift bed and rolled over onto his side, clasping his arms around his knees and curling into the fetal position.

He’d never done this before, never let it get this bad before finding a new fix, and now he knew why. Only going without for a few days at most, and normally only when Dean would confiscate his stash, Cas had heard enough horror stories from Risa and Chuck for him to know that withdrawal was no laughing matter, be he never truly _understood_ until that moment. Nothing could have prepared him for the agony he was in, but thanks to them, he was fully cognizant of the fact that there was nothing he could to help him through it. Nothing that worked anyways, besides more drugs, and he wasn’t about to get that. Not unless he wanted to spend his first night amongst the kind people who had taken him in, the first people he’d encountered in the better part of a month, robbing them blind.

Cas clenched his eyes shut, whispering over again like a mantra, “Don’t steal from the only people alive to help you.”

The hunter (Daryl, his name is Daryl) mentioned that he would have to hide his addiction, and Cas wondered if that was because of Rick. The man was obviously a cop, not ostensibly from the way he held himself and more obviously from the badge on his hip, and that set Cas back on his heels. In his five years as a human he’d learned quickly what it meant to be a junkie; people just didn’t trust you. As a rule, you were probably going to steal their money to get drugs, or steal their shit to hawk to get drugs, or just steal their drugs. Either way, you were going to rob them. And although Cas hadn’t touched the stuff until after the world ended, people still held tightly to that stereotype… with good reason.

When he first started using, he never believed he would end up a thief. He never thought he would procure a habit either. Unfortunately, Dilaudid was just the only thing that helped him sleep at night.

After he fell, the dissipation of his powers wasn’t his most grievous loss (though Dean would have argued otherwise). It wasn’t the way his wing, incorporeal as they were, burned away into heaps in the aether, leaving nothing but physical, cavernous scars across his shoulder blades. Nor was it losing the presence of the Host, as he’d lost that long before, when he’d chosen free will and the Winchesters over his own father. Cas didn’t mourn the loss of his holy connection, the hive mind of brothers and sisters, and found that sometimes he relished in the silence, in the solitude of his newfound individuality.

What he missed the most and what kept him up at night, the greatest cost for his insurrection was his immortality.

As an angel, he had witnessed the first creature crawl from the primordial muck. He’d the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, Homo sapiens winning the evolutionary lottery, how they had built homes out of dung and twigs and turned them into great civilizations, all the while wondering how they got there, and what happens when they die?

He watched humanity, felt for humanity, and though he could no longer see all of time and space in an instant, he felt it was not so great a loss to just be human. He could remember all their follies, their greatest accomplishments, and he was now a part of that great history.

He remembered watching Hannibal Barca, with only his wits, humiliate the greatest empire of his time repeatedly, and as he watched Cas had swelled with pride.

When he witnessed Charlemagne command the massacre of 4,500 Saxons for their denouncement of Christianity, he’d wept at their ignorance.

Humanities first flight, the development of vaccines, the fall of the Berlin Wall, their accomplishments and victories Cas carried in his heart, uplifted by the knowledge of their strength. The burning of the Library of Alexandria, the creation of the atomic bomb, the spread of genocide and hated, and the worst of their race sat firmly in his mind, showing him their weakness and how to learn from their mistakes. The loss of his angelic lineage was nothing in the face of all this. So now he was human, with all the strength and weaknesses, and all the greatness that came along with it. So, what? He could achieve more, be more as a part of humanity than he ever could aspire to as a servant of God.

But that pesky expiration date was another matter entirely.

During his waking hours, his humanity hung over his head like the sword of Damocles, and he could feel the thread thinning with every heartbeat, every rush of blood through his veins. How had humans managed to get anything done, he’d wondered once, when their mortality was beating at their back every second of the day? Any breath could be their last, so how the hell did they have the wits to look towards the future and accomplish… _anything_?

Dean told him he was being dramatic, and maybe he was. Eventually he found ways to ignore it, so long as he was awake. He could immerse himself in written words and stories, fantasy worlds of lived experiences unlike his own, real or fiction, inspired or droll. He could work himself to exhaustion, he could talk for hours with others, and he could drink and fuck and eat to his hearts content. But every night, when he lay there in bed, with no distractions available and his mind reeling with thoughts unrepressed… he was afraid.

He was afraid of sleep, and he came to realize that there was no concept of mortality, no comprehension of death _greater_ than sleep. “Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother,” he realized before he even knew who Steinbeck was, but when he read that passage one night, alone in his cabin, he sobbed with understanding. Sleep was like dying, every night, and dying was his greatest fear.

So, he took pills. Their doctor Risa had given him barbiturates, but they just made him even more irritable in the morning when he woke up with a start and no recollection of having fallen asleep at all. She gave him Ambien, Klonopin, Valium… those just made him sick and loopy. Empty, he called it once, they made him empty. He also couldn’t fight or defend himself on them. Finally, she gave him Dilaudid, telling him it would just be on occasion, until he got over his phobia or they could figure out a better solution.

Dilaudid was revolutionary. It didn’t put him to sleep, but it moved his fears out of reach, separating them from him like a thin glass wall. It was such a small, inconsequential thing that he hardly recognized it wasn’t much of a barrier at all. Like an enclosure at the zoo, if the animal really wanted you dead it would fight through it. But it’s too much of an inconvenience for the beast, and it’s a soothing reminder of your distance that you can suspend your disbelief and relax in your false security. And to Cas, that distance was what he needed to finally, for the first time in his human existence, sleep soundly.

It started off as a pill every third day. Risa wouldn’t give him more, saying it was “highly addictive” and “habit-forming,” and for a while he really tried to stick to her schedule. But those days in between where sleep alluded him were torturous, agonizing long nights wherein he was forced to stay awake until the light of day broke through the trees and he finally passed out from exhaustion. Cas knew the pills worked, he knew what restful sleep was, and to be given succour and have it taken away? It was infuriating. It wasn’t fair.

Besides, he still thought of himself as above human. Meta-human. He convinced himself, through his half-crazed exhaustion, that even though the pills were supposed to be dangerous, it wouldn’t affect him the same way. He was stronger—it would be different.

So, he started stealing them. He would tell Risa that someone in the main building was looking her, that there were people coming back from a run, or that Dean needed her opinion on a strange rash he had developed, whatever worked to get her out of her cabin so he could loot it. When she started catching on, she stopped giving them to him altogether, and he was forced to think bigger. He realized he could pay other people in the camp to steal them for him, either with snacks and goodies he picked up on runs, in bullets and weapons, or favours and chores. He started to steal from some to pay others. He even paid them with sex when he was desperate, or when it was Ian he was dealing with; he wouldn’t take any other form of payment but a quick fuck or blow job, but he was the most reliable. He got him the good shit and didn’t give him flack for it either, and whenever he was around he always made sure Cas was treated well.

This went on for months, and soon one pill a night turned into two a day. But it wasn’t until the camp was raided and their medical stores were ransacked that he had to go without, and he went through withdrawal for the first time.

Cas thought he had the flu at first. His nose ran and he was hot and cold at the same time, complete with fever and chills. He was so sore, a deep ache that started in his bones and rose to the surface of his skin every time his clothes shifted, or he moved the slightest. And he did move, all the time, just not of his own volition as his limbs began twitching and shuddering like he had just run a marathon. When he went to Risa under the assumption he was dying, she’d taken one look at him, gave him a pitying stare, and told him they should have some morphine available by the time Dean got back from his run in three days.

Risa helped him through it, but he was miserable. He felt like he would never be well again, that he would be sick forever until the day he died. One night, when she left him momentarily to attend to one of her _real_ patients, Cas laid with his face down on the rotting wood floor of his cabin and seriously considered ending his life. He honestly believed that he’d broken himself, and that the only option left for him was to take his angel blade and make it stop. But his fear, his inconceivable fear of dying that the drugs had made him forget about reared its ugly head and wouldn’t let him. By the time Risa came back, he was lying on his bed with his face against the wall, and no one ever learned of his momentary weakness.

Now, lying similarly in a tent in a strange camp surrounded by strange people, he felt that weakness again. How easy it would be just to stop this horrible sickness. He still didn’t know if it ever went away on its own. Risa had told him eventually it does but god, the last time it had lasted five days! Five days with no reprieve until Dean had returned with a pack of ancient morphine syrettes. He didn’t know if he could even do five days again, much less stick it out for however long it took, and Castiel cursed himself once again for so believing he was going to be granted the luxury of death that he left his last brick of heroin behind in the Impala, rotting away on that god forsaken highway.

Cas’ pity party was promptly interrupted as his stomach lurched uncomfortably. “Shit,” he muttered, ripping the flap of his tent open and running towards the nearest grove of trees in just his boxers and a tee shirt, his shoes and jeans balled up on his tent floor. Only just managing to duck behind an oak, Cas retched loudly, barely digested cracker suspended in a slurry of water jettisoning from his slackened mouth and landing with a sickening splat onto the roots of the tree. He fell heavily to his knees, flinching with the shock of it as the impact shuddered up his bones.

 _That’s going to bruise_ , he thought ruefully, before he was interrupted by another lurch of his diaphragm, more cracker and water, then just water, and now bile, sliding slick and fiery up his abused throat. He dry-heaved, whimpering as his face turned red, his stomach just not getting the memo that it was empty. He thought for a second that he was going to knock himself out with the force of his gags when he felt a familiar pair of work-roughened hands grasp him by his shoulders, rolling his limp body onto its side, and thrusting a bottle of water against his mouth.

“Drink.” Leaving no room for backtalk, Daryl started slowly pouring the water into his mouth, and Castiel fought against every bodily urge to gulp in the cool water. It soothed his throat, but it wasn’t cold enough to cramp his stomach once more. He felt Daryl sit heavily on the ground beside him, thankfully no longer touching him (his skin was so sensitive, he couldn’t take it) but close enough that if he leaned back, he would hit him in the side.

Castiel took the bottle in his shaking hands, taking a few smaller swigs and rolling onto his back, trying to catch his breath and ignore the pounding in his head. When he looked up at Daryl, it was with an embarrassed, pitiable smile, “Spasibo.”

“Spicy what?” Daryl threw him a strange, uncomprehending look.

Cas laughed lightly before he answered, wincing as the motion dug his back into the rocks and twigs beneath him as he explained, “Spasibo. it’s Russian for thank you. I figured since you won’t let me thank you in English, I should try it in a different language. See if it got different results.”

“You shouldn’t be thanking me at all, I’m not doing nothin’,” his companion said as he turned his head towards the camp, pretending to look for others, to see if anyone else heard Cas puking his guts out, but there was no one to see. It was the middle of the night, and all the fires were out. Daryl was just trying not to look at him, even as he continued talking, which Castiel found deeply curious, “You shouldn’t be laying on your back, else you’ll choke on your own barf.”

“I’m still conscious. I would hope I have the presence of mind to roll if I have to puke,” Cas said, taking his advice though and rolling onto his side, his muscles shuddering in protest. He was very amusing, this Daryl. Fun to tease, much like Dean did with Sam once upon a time, “No Russian then, maybe we’ll try Latvian next time. Or Spanish.”

“Or just none, at all.”

“Afrikaans? Korean?”

“Stop!” Daryl griped, sucking his teeth, “Jesus you’re annoying. Don’t make me regret coming out to help you. I could have just left you out here on your own, and I still could if you don’t stop talking.”

He spoke a big game, all threatening bluster, but Daryl wasn’t moving and Castiel smiled brightly at him in response. He couldn’t help it, he reminded him of Dean in a way, or of how Dean used to be before the world fell apart, and so Cas was liking him already. He had a gruff, hard done by exterior, hyper masculine persona… but was sort of a sweetheart underneath, a kind-hearted person who couldn’t just watch another suffer. He put on airs like he didn’t give a shit in the same way Dean did, but he was still here in the middle of the night, helping him to his feet and walking him back to his tent, even though he didn’t have to, and for some reason that made Castiel feel insurmountably guilty.

“I won’t thank you anymore for tonight, in any language, I promise,” Cas said as they both ducked under the tent flap, letting Daryl lay him down on his sleeping bag, and he groaned at the feeling of the hard ground on his back. His legs were beating his feet against the edge of the sleeping bag, filling the tent with a rhythmic swish-swish-swish, “though, I can’t promise I won’t be out there again tonight.” It was the truth, nausea already creeping back through him and Cas buried his face in his trembling hands, “God, I’m so sorry I’m putting you through this, it’s so stupid. It’s not like I didn’t get here through any fault of my own—”

“Wait, you ever done this before?” Daryl paused in leaving the tent, half crouched and poised to take off before he could finish his sentence, but now his attention had shifted and was centered solely on Castiel, “Like, all the way through? Kicked it completely?” Cas shook his head, and Daryl pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Okay, I get it. Look,” with a long-suffering sigh Daryl sat down inside the tent, his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees, “it gets easier, you just need to make it through the first couple of days. Usually around the end of the fifth day the sickness starts to go away, but it can be up to a week, or sometimes even less. Point is, it don’t stay this bad forever. You just gotta wait. How long has it been since you ran out?”

Cas clenched his eyes shut and swallowed thickly, the taste of vomit lingering on his tongue threatening to make him hurl again, “Three days now, tomorrow will make it four.”

Daryl nodded, “You’re in the thick of it now, but not for much longer. Just a few days more and then you’re home free, right?” Cas looked at him solemnly, and Daryl huffed, adding that, “You just gotta make sure you don’t go back, and man, I swear to god if you steal from us? From anyone in this camp? You’re so done, there’s no fucking saving you, got it?”

With a pitiful smirk, Cas raised his hand to his forehead in a paltry salute, before struggling to sit up straight. He was already being chastised, he didn’t need to be physically lying down for it as well. “Whatever you say, boss,” he said, groaning as he managed to sit up, his posture mirroring Daryl’s, “How do you know so much about this, anyways? And why are you being so nice about it? I don’t mean to offend, but my habit hasn’t really elicited the best response from strangers.”

“Man, my brother’s been a junkie since I was six, my dad since before I was born. They’re lifers, keep on quittin’ and comin’ back. You ain’t been using long, I can tell cause you haven’t started shooting yet, so what you’re going through ain’t nowhere near as bad as what they did.” He wasn’t belittling, just stating a fact, “And I don’t know, I guess I just get it. Wisdom is what you get for surviving stupidity, right?”

“Brian Rathbone,” Cas picked up the quote easily, really smiling for what felt like the first time in forever, “I didn’t think you would be a trash fantasy reader.” Castiel didn’t know if Daryl even realized he’d paraphrased him, but the flush that crept along his cheeks pointed to yes, “Hey, I read it to, I’m not judging.”

“I read a lot of throw away fantasy when I was younger, I guess that just stuck out in my head,” Daryl wasn’t looking at Cas anymore as he spoke. Instead he stared intently at a tree right outside the flap of the tent, lips pursed and particularly uncomfortable, “It seemed to fit.”

That was an odd reaction, even for a human, whom Castiel always found intensely impulsive, unpredictable and complex. Normally talking about their childhood and the things they once enjoyed was a way to get people to open up, to get to know them, but clearly this wasn’t the case with Daryl.

Castiel decided to let it slide. He didn’t want to spook him. As a matter of fact, he was enjoying talking to Daryl. This was the first conversation he’d had with another person in a month, the first one he’d had about anything other than fighting and bloodshed for longer than he cared to remember. “What else do you read?” he asked imploringly, looking down and fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. Maybe if he gave Daryl some space and didn’t stare at him like he was on display in a museum he might feel comfortable enough to stay and talk some more. He might not want to run away, and then Cas wouldn’t have to be alone, wondering if he was afraid of dying for nothing.

The question hung in the air for a long couple of minutes, and Cas was beginning to wonder if Daryl had even heard him when finally, he answered, “I’ve been reading Moby Dick.”

“Ah, call me Ishmael.”

“You’ve read it?”

“Yes, many times. The first time wasn’t too long ago, but every time I read it I find something new, a different meaning that I didn’t notice before.”

“Yeah, it’s meant to be read like that I think. Forster, I read somewhere he said that it’s full of meanings: its own meaning is a different problem.”

“Oh, Forster! I have— here, I have a book here, I just finished with it.” Cas stretched out across the tent haphazardly, flying into motion so suddenly that Daryl jumped a little in surprise. “Vybachte,” Castiel said sheepishly, pulling his copy of _A Passage to India_ out of his bag and thrusting it out to him, “Read it. It’s pretty good.”

Daryl took the book from his hand after another long pause, and asked, “Vi… batch-ty? What language is that?”

“Ukrainian, it means ‘I’m sorry’.” Castiel watched him curiously, “You don’t like apologies either, do you?”

Daryl shook his head, “No, not when they’re just thrown around. Makes them worthless.”

“Fair enough,” Cas agreed. _He’s curious_ , Cas thought to himself, quiet when he needs to be, kind of defensive when he’s not. But he’s intelligent, quick witted, and seemed to have no penchant for bullshit, which was nice. Castiel didn’t to have much patience for it those days, either.

A silence fell between them, though not an uncomfortable one. With the dim lantern lighting the tent, Daryl began flipping through the book in his hands, and Cas was able to forget his discomfort for a few incredible moments. It was an easy, reassuring stillness, wherein both of them inhabited the same space and breathed the same air, no need for words without meaning.

Surprisingly, it was Daryl who broke the silence, asking Cas, “How many languages do you speak, anyways?”

Not looking up from his hands, which were loosely curled in his lap, he answered his question with a question, “If I say all, would you take that as an acceptable answer?”

Daryl snorted disbelievingly, “Hell no, that’s not an acceptable answer! Bullshit, ain’t no way you can speak every language. That’s impossible.”

“You’d be surprised how little in this world is actually impossible.”

“Waxing philosophical ain’t no answer, neither.”

Cas heard the smile in his voice before he saw it, and when he looked up he wasn’t disappointed. Daryl had two facial expressions all night: pissed, and only-slightly-pissed. But now, laying sideways on the uneven floor of the tent, stretched out long like a cat with his legs hanging out the door and leaning up on one elbow, he had this cocky, sanguine grin on his face that was aimed squarely at Castiel.

Cas couldn’t help but meet his gaze. He had been trying to avoid it, to make Daryl more comfortable but there was something impossible about it, the same way it had been when he woke up in the RV. Taking stock of the surroundings he had stumbled into it, and just like that, he was snapped up in an icy blue trap. It was all he could do not to back down as that stare had felt like a stand-off, and he worried if he lost he might not make it through his next moments alive. His breath caught in his throat and he stood his ground, but there was nothing frightening about it, not really. Just a warning to an animal caught in a trap: stay still, and you won’t get hurt.

And just then, in that moment, Cas had fallen into it again. And that friendly, relaxed silence that they had garnered was no longer so comfortable. It was electric charged, simmering just below the surface of what they could see, and it shook the tent around them like the wind buffeting outside. Something howled in the woods, but they didn’t hear it. And the tent flap quaked and rustled but they paid it no mind. They were swirling in a vortex of their own making, and it troubled them into stillness, a heady and uncertain spell.

That Castiel broke when he upchucked into his hands.

“Oh, fucking gross man. Who taught you how to live?” Daryl reprimanded, moving quickly to Castiel’s side nonetheless, taking him by the shoulders and hauling him to his feet. He maneuvered them both outside the tent, sitting Cas down in the dirt.

It wasn’t really puke anymore, Cas observed with no small amount of disgust, just bile and water. He had nothing in his stomach to throw up, his body was just confused. It felt sick and didn’t understand why, so it was trying to purge everything that could be the culprit. The puke, the sweat, the snot it was just his body trying to rid itself of junk-sickness but it wouldn’t work. It was in him on a microscopic level, and the only thing to be done was to wait it out until the junk-sick cells died off, replaced by ones that had never known the touch of smack.

But it could still be some ways off, and Castiel felt like he was in no position to wait any longer. He was shuddering violently, his stomach visibly lurching even through his threadbare tee-shirt. His fingers tapped the ground without his volition as he wiped the watery bile off his hands into the dirt. He was filthy, dust and grime and gore clinging in layers to the skin of his arms, his face and neck. His clothes were soaked through with sweat, piling on top of even more layers of sweat long dried and yellowed. His face was wreathed in a scruffy, greasy beard and his hair clung to his face and neck uncomfortably, hotly in the warm Georgia night.

He needed a bath, bad.

And apparently, Daryl thought the same.

“Alright,” Daryl decided, and before Castiel could ask what he was agreeing to he was hefted unceremoniously onto his feet, his arm pulled once more around this still-a-strangers neck, “You need to get washed up, and so do your clothes. Are any of them clean?”

“What? You want me to bathe, now?” Cas scoffed, trying to pull his arm back, “It’s the middle of the night, no!” _Who the hell did this guy think he was?_ But Daryl pushed forward on his feet and Cas had no choice but to follow, too weak to protest.

“Look, this ain’t no fucking picnic for me either, alright?” Daryl said, seemingly uncaring that Cas was sweaty, covered in his own vomit and half naked as he helped him walk through the trees towards the lip of the quarry, “but you’re disgusting, and you’re gonna keep on feelin’ disgusting until you get cleaned up. Besides, the last thing you need is to get sick from some walker blood. We can wash your stuff in the morning, but for right now we need to get that shit off you. Now, do you have any clean clothes?”

“Yes,” Cas relented after a long pause, tripping over a downed tree branch, forcing Daryl to stop and steady him, “yeah, I have my cold weather clothes, haven’t had to wear them yet. Sweater and jeans in my duffle.” He shuffled along, leaning heavily on Daryl as he was led past the rows of tents and down into the quarry. Daryl held a finger up to his lips as they walked, and Cas realized that it must be late. There were no lights on in any of the tents, and the moon was hanging low in the west— it was probably very early in the morning, come to think of it.

Once they reached the water’s edge, they were faced with a dilemma. “Cas,” Daryl asked, his voice low and nearly drowned out by the lapping of water against the shore, “do you think you can stand on your own?”

“Probably not,” he said honestly, “but if you’re bound and determined, I’m sure if you sat me down, I could keep myself from drowning. Just set me down some ways into the water, I can take it from there. You go get my clothes.”

Daryl gave him a mocking salute, mirroring his posture from earlier and Castiel grinned in response, happy they were managing to forge some sort of camaraderie out of this dreadful situation.

They went about the rest in silence, no words between the two of them, just the gentle splash of little waves around their feet as Daryl navigated Cas into the water, sitting him down about five feet out from the bank. The water lapped coolly at his skin through his jeans and his shirt, rising just about mid waist when he sat down, and he noted with a rush of relief that the water didn’t bite at him. Sickness usually made water feel like hot knives, especially water this cool, but now it only felt like a gentle sting, something much more manageable.

Cas surged with delight as Daryl left him alone to grab his clothes, and even though he could feel his aching bones and muscles cry out in pain, Cas hurriedly went to work on his socks and boxers, balling and chucking them one by one towards the bank. When he got to his shirt, he hesitated, a familiar sense of shame washing over him sooner than he could beat it down and get on with it. He ripped the shirt off before he could talk himself out of it and settled in the water, holding it up and squinting at it in the dim moonlight.

It was one of Dean’s old tees, ratty and full of holes, a Guns and Roses one that hadn’t fit him quite right anymore. Just looking at it made him feel sick again, so Cas crumpled it up, and used it to start scrubbing twenty some odd days of dirt and grime off his skin. Splashing his face with the cool water, feeling it wash away the sickening grease from his beard, the crusty whatever from his forehead… he had to admit that Daryl was right. He _was_ already feeling better.

 _Here’s hoping it’ll last_ , Cas mused.

* * *

Daryl was staring at his feet on the ground as he walked back down the path towards the water, Castiel’s worn red sweater and faded blue jeans gripped firmly in one hand, a clean towel and a book in the other. He’d stared at the sweater for a solid five minutes as he was unpacking it, not at all surprised that it was from Stanford. Of course, Castiel had a fancy college education, why else would he have read _Moby Dick_ five times? Trying to keep that creeping feeling of inadequacy at bay, Daryl was kicking up pebbles on the beach when he finally reached the waters edge and looked up.

His breath caught in his throat, and he nearly dropped his book.

Castiel was sitting in the water, rubbing his tee-shirt, now soaking wet, across his face, through his hair, and across his shoulders like a makeshift washcloth. He was waist high, his back turned as he worked, silent aside from the occasional disbelieving chuckles that shook through his body and rippled the water wrapped around him. His skin was tanned and golden, burnt a little red around his neck and arms, across his forehead from walking for days in the beating sun, but still clear and unblemished, barely a freckle… except for his shoulder blades.

What he saw there had Daryl stuck at a standstill. Atop his shoulder blades, symmetrical on both sides, were thick, deep scars. They looked like someone had taken a cleaver to his back and just started digging. Fat, raised cords of scar tissue furled around the outside, the shallowest of the scarring, forming a perimeter around yawning, vaguely triangular shaped maws. At the very center was a thin membrane of flesh, barely even skin, and when he shifted his arms Daryl could see the bone moving clearly through it. The skin around the ropey scar tissue was raised and pockmarked in places, looking like it had been burned as well as sliced.

It was an atrocious sight, and the amount of pain he must have been in while this was being done to him, or after when the shock wore off and he was left with the agony of healing such immense wounds… Daryl couldn’t even fathom it. He wondered how it happened, and why? Who had done this to him? Was it Dean, when he found out Castiel was starting a mutiny? Was it someone else in his camp? Or had it happened before the dead stopped staying dead?

It didn’t matter, Daryl decided. He wasn’t going to find out anyways, ain’t no way he would ask about them. Cas was a stranger, and those scars spoke of something deeply personal, something painful and buried, and Daryl was never one to pry. He wasn’t ever going to mention having seen them. He wouldn’t want Cas asking about his own after all, so he wasn’t going ask about his neither.

“Hey, I got your clothes here,” he called out in a stage whisper, his voice carrying across the water but not loud enough to be heard from the camp. Castiel turned with a start, his arms flying across his chest as he tried futilely to cover his shoulder blades with his hands, but Daryl kept his head to the ground, laying the clothes down as well as the towel. He made a show of it, keeping his head turned at an odd angle from his body, obvious even in the moonlight and at a distance that he wasn’t looking, “I’m just gonna be over there, come get me when you’re done and I’ll take you back up.”

Daryl noticed in his periphery that Castiel relaxed as soon as he saw Daryl walk away, leaving his clothes on the bank. He let his arms fall, hands slapping the surface of the water as he let go of a breath he was holding. The instant he’d heard Daryl’s voice across, his expression had contorted with a white-hot shame that Daryl knew all too well. He was probably wondering how he could be so stupid as to take his shirt off in the first place. He was probably kicking himself over Daryl possibly seeing his back, and he probably thought Daryl would the same way everyone else did: with questions that Cas didn’t have an answer to.

So, when Daryl didn’t meet his eyes, didn’t comment, and walked away, he could practically feel his relief as Cas sank back into the water. Flipping open his book, Daryl read in the moonlight, hoping he had helped to mitigate some of the embarrassment by looking disinterested, and he relaxed when he heard Cas start washing again.

As the minutes ticked on, however, Daryl found he was turning the pages slower, distracted by the man who was currently lounging in the shallows, his back turned away from Daryl and his head tilted back. Castiel had since finished cleaning himself, and was now just sitting and enjoying the cool water, tipping his head into the shallows and wetting his hair before sitting upright again, water dripping in steady rivulets down his long, moonlit neck.

Daryl bit his cheek hard and flipped another page, despite not having retained a word of the previous passage. He stared down at the raised, black characters and tried to make sense of them, but he was unable to stop his traitorous gaze from wandering as Cas raised his arms, running his hands through his hair, sinewy muscle shifting under his tanned, unblemished skin. His ribs were a little too pronounced, belying his lack of appetite and access to food the past month, but just from the look of him, he was probably always a bit of a skinny runt. He was thin, his waist tapered and trim as it sank below the surface, the water blissfully obscuring what lay beneath. There seemed to be no hair on him at all, save for a trail of dark, softly curled hair that dipped down below his abdomen, standing in stark contrast to his skin—

 _Get a fuckin’ grip on yourself_! Daryl mentally chastised, biting down so hard on his cheek that his tongue was suddenly flooded with the taste of blood. He buried his nose in his book, but clenched his eyes shut. He’d not had this much trouble _not_ checking out another guy since he was sixteen, and there was no fucking reason for him to start with this shit now. It was the end of the world, he had bigger things to worry about and he’d be _damned_ if he let slip his iron will, the same he’d cultivated through a veritable lifetime of denial and avoidance.

So, this Cas guy was hot. So what? It’s not like that was something he cared about, Daryl tried to convince himself. He was just human, he had eyes and he was making an observation. _Can it, and move on._

But then he heard a splash, the rippling water from Cas’ direction as he stood up catching Daryl’s eye and before he could stop himself he glanced up, getting an eyeful of long, muscular legs and a thin, sloping back ending in the perkiest, meatiest ass Daryl had ever seen on a man—

 _For fucks sake_ , Daryl bit back a groan as he clapped a hand over his eyes, forcibly turning his head so he was looking down at the rocks, waiting until he could no longer hear the water rushing around Cas’ legs. He heard him rifling through his clothes and the brush of the towel Daryl had brought him, and Daryl finally deemed it safe to go back to his book, shifting to tuck his half-hard cock out of sight and angrier at himself than he had been in a really long time.

He thought he was past this shit, goddamn it! He thought he’d left this behind, back when he was young and dumb, before he’d buried this confusing attraction in nameless, faceless women and prolonged bouts of celibacy. He was a grown man, not some horny teenager, and there was no way he was letting himself get turned on by some stranger he’d only just met, much less a _man_. It was nothing, he told himself, it’s just been such a long time since he’d gotten laid, and since there was no chance of that happening any time soon, his body was just reacting to the first naked person he’d seen in almost a year, that’s all.

His cock throbbed as if in protest, and even as he came to that decision, Daryl knew deep down it was a flimsy excuse at best. It was the only one he had, though, the same one he’d had for the past thirty years of his life, and he’d be damned if he was gonna give it up now.

* * *

“Here.”

Castiel looked up sharply from where he was kneeling on the ground, slipping his jeans up past his hips, surprised to see Daryl there holding his shoes. They were thrust at his face, held together by the laces in one of Daryl’s calloused hands, and as he took them he observed the paperback in the other.

“You’re reading it already?” Castiel remarked, seeing the familiar cover of the book he had just lent to him, pulling his boots onto his bare feet. His socks were still in the wind, but it wasn’t such a loss. They were less socks, and more dirty, sweaty bundles of hardened fiber now anyways. He had a few to spare.

“Yeah, I thought you might take longer,” Daryl told him as he climbed to his feet, and Castiel noted curiously that he was avoiding looking at him, staring instead at the ground beneath his feet as he asked, “How you feeling?”

“Better, really. Danke,” Castiel smiled, enjoying the way Daryl got his nose out of joint when he recognized that as a ‘thank you’. He didn’t say anything this time, to his benefit, “I think you were right, about it passing soon. The water didn’t feel like needles like it normally does when I go without, and I don’t feel as sick as before. Honestly, I think I could probably even sleep now.”

“Well that’s good, ‘cause I’ve already wasted half the night babysitting, I ain’t about to waste the rest of it holding your hair while you barf,” Daryl griped, but it was decidedly good natured. Hauling Cas back onto his feet, they started their steady climb back up to the camp, “Just remember, if anyone else asks you’re just sick from the sun. No mentioning shit about drugs, okay? I already get enough heat from these people thinkin’ I’m bad news, I don’t need them knowing I brought a junkie into the camp, too.”

“I promise. It wouldn’t help me for them to know either so you can relax. I won’t say anything.” Castiel kept his head down, looking at their feet stepping in tandem, feeling the sick seeping back into his bones, but farther away now. His stomach had settled, and he almost felt hungry for the first time in days. Almost. As they stopped at his tent, Castiel gestured to the book Daryl’s hand, “If you’re going to actually read that, just ignore the notes in the margins. I find it helpful, when I’m reading something that takes time to digest, to write down my thoughts. It makes it easier for me, but to other people it would probably be like reading the ending first, you know? Reading my thoughts, before formulating their own?” Daryl didn’t say anything, so he continued rambling as he crawled into the tent, “I think I’d like that, to hear your thoughts, I mean. You’re probably the first person I’ve met since this all started who seems to like reading for the sake of learning, as well as an escape.”

He turned back to look up at Daryl, to gauge his expression, to possibly learn more about him. With the moon at his back, his eyes were dark and hooded, and Castiel could barely make out the features of his face. He saw his wry smile though, one that Daryl probably wasn’t even sure he was wearing, thinking himself protected by the shadow of night. “Anyways,” Cas said, smiling back brightly, if tired, “I guess I’ve thanked you enough for one day, so I’ll save the rest until tomorrow. Goodnight, Daryl.”

“Goodnight, Cas.”

As he crawled to his sleeping bag and rolled up in it, his muscles still ached and his limbs still twitched… but oddly enough Cas felt calm. He felt warm, clean and safe for the first time since Dean hatched his ridiculous plan. He was in strange territory, but he felt like he could manage here. He even thought he maybe made a friend already. Daryl was rough around the edges, and from his own words he wasn’t the most popular around this camp, but that was comforting in its own way. Cas wasn’t the most popular at Chitaqua either, but that didn’t mean he was a bad person: he just didn’t fit in. And in his experience as a human, as short and unconventional as it may be, it was the pieces that didn’t fit into the puzzle that were the most interesting when placed together.

That night, for the first time in his life as a human, he fell asleep quickly and easily, no fear of a short brush with death keeping him awake, and no drugs keeping him apart. Just the soft wind rustling the leaves overhead, and a comforting glow emanating from the tent next to his, as its only occupant flipped through the pages of a well-worn book.


	3. Meetings

When Daryl woke the next morning, it was to a high rising sun and only three hours of sleep. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the roof of his tent, willing the daylight away even as it shone at him through the mesh ceiling. It was warm in Georgia in the summer, the tarp rendered unnecessary and restricting his air flow, so he opted to leave it off. But that was last night when it was dark and cool, and he was regretting that decision now that the sun was beating down on him, getting in his eyes and burning at his skin.

He blamed Castiel and E.M. Forster. He wasn’t up too late with him, by the time he got into his own tent and settled down for the night the moon was still up and the sun had yet to even peek above the horizon. He had everything set, the tent to rights and was sprawled on top of his sleeping bag, but he couldn’t stop his mind from roiling. His thoughts had been keeping him up at night for weeks now, ever since Merle got left behind. Since he stopped having someone to talk to.

His body craved sleep, but his brain wouldn’t let up. And usually he’d just lay there, simmering through his memories until he passed out or it was time to start another day. But last night Cas had given him a book, a new book that looked like a decently smart read, not just a throwaway paperback like the camp was normally stocked with and Daryl was drawn to it immediately. He had read Moby Dick multiple times, just like Castiel, and he could put it aside for a little while to read something new, especially if there was the promise of discussing it later.

Daryl never had someone to talk with about the books he read. His brother didn’t read anything but magazines and scripture, and his daddy never read at all. He’d to the custodian at the library sometimes, and he was interesting enough but they never discussed anything particularly insightful, just traded recommendations then moved on to cars. There was no one at the camp to talk with either, not really. Although he knew they would if he approached them, and they were amicable enough, he found he couldn’t push his luck there; they were as apt to go off on him for something menial as they were for something big, just cause of the way he and his brother were.

But this new guy, he seemed like an avid reader. He had one of the most interesting collections of books he had seen since the world ended, and he was friendly. Approachable. So, Daryl found he couldn’t help feeling the tiniest bit excited at the idea of being able to talk about the shit he read with someone else, especially with someone who writes notes in the margins of their books like Mark Twain.

By the dim light of his lantern, with the glasses no one in this camp was ever gonna catch him wearing laying low on the bridge of his nose, he cracked open the cover and started reading, intent on only getting the first few chapters in before trying to sleep. He ended up finishing the whole damn thing, all 148 pages of it. He even managed to skim back through some of Castiel’s notes, and as an afterthought, he pulled a pencil out of his bag and laid down some of his own. By the time he turned out his lamp, he realized it wasn’t even necessary: the sun was rising, the pale morning light already spilling into his tent.

Grumbling under his breath, Daryl sat up and started to tug his shirt and shoes on. He was still exhausted but Rick would want him to be up with Castiel, and it wouldn’t do to sleep the morning away. He had to go check on his snares, and with someone there to shadow him, he knew it would take twice as long.

Approaching Castiel’s tent, Daryl realized with some relief that the rest of the camp seemed to just be waking up, meaning he hadn’t slept in too late. And even more surprising, as he hiked up to the tent he realized that the flap was already pinned open. Curious, he didn’t hesitate to crouch down and stick his head in.

“Well good morning to you too.” Castiel remarked dryly, a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth and a bemused look on his face, “Do you make a habit of just walking into places uninvited?”

He shaved, Daryl noted as he sat down at the mouth of the tent. His scruffy beard was gone, obviously due to the electric razor that the whole camp was going to end up coveting. It wasn’t a clean shave but it got the job done, and Daryl realized dismally that could see his face now, all sharp angles and high cheeks, full lips and cleft chin. All cleaned up and in the light of day, he looked like the kind of guy you would find on the cover of one of those gossip magazines Andrea kept moaning about, not starving out in the woods kicking a heroin addiction, and that god awful, completely unwarranted feeling of attraction whirled once again in Daryl’s gut, fighting as he tried to tamp it down.

“Oh, okay we’re not talking today. That’s fine, I can work with that,” Cas quipped as he nudged Daryl’s leg with his foot, moving him out of the way so he could lean out the tent and spit his toothpaste onto the dirt. Throwing his toothbrush back into the tent, he stood up outside and stretched, feeling his muscles and joints creak and pop under the strain. “I never thought that sleeping in a tent could be preferable to sleeping in a car,” he said, groaning as he arched his back, his shirt riding up as he moved flashing the barest glimpse of his sharp hipbones, “but I don’t think I’ve slept that well in weeks.”

“How are you feeling?” Daryl asked, deciding the safest place he could be looking at that moment was down at the ground. From what he’d seen, CAS appeared to be feeling better. he wasn’t shaking as violently and he hadn’t thrown up yet. Plus, he also managed to sleep, which was saying something.

“Much better, I don’t know what you did but you are a miracle worker. I still feel like I have an awful cold, but there’s no nausea or stomach cramps, and I can stand on my own without toppling over,” Cas said, and Daryl could practically hear his smile, his tone bright and chipper, a complete one-eighty from what it was last night, “I think getting cleaned up and drinking something helped a lot. And guess what?”

“What?”

“I’m starving,” Cas said with a laugh, “I haven’t been hungry for days, and I can’t remember the last time I ate something I didn’t immediately puke up after. It’s amazing, I thought I would never eat again for a while there.”

“Well, we can get you some food then, might as well introduce you to the rest of the camp while we’re at it,” Daryl said with relief as he stood and dusted off his pants, turning towards the cluster of tents a few feet away from their own. He was eager to meet up with the group, figuring that once they were around the rest of them, Daryl could probably manage a moment to get his head on straight. But when he stood, the book he had shoved in his back pocket jabbed him in the thigh, reminding him immediately of why he’d come there in the first place, and so reluctantly he stopped, pulling it out and handing it back to Castiel, “I also finished with this.”

Castiel took the proffered book with no small amount of surprise, “Really? You can’t have finished it already; did you not like it? I'll admit it is kind of a slog to read, I have others that are less wordy if you want to borrow a different one—”

Daryl’s eyes snapped up towards his, and he bit back, “No, I just couldn’t sleep last night so I read the whole thing. What, that surprise you?” He rolled his shoulders, aggravation pulling at their muscles, and with a glare he stepped into Castiel’s space, tall and rocking back and forth between his feet. Fuck, it figured. Of course he was just patronizing him, what else was new, “Stupid backwoods hick like me can’t make it through a book without pictures? Huh?”

He spat and kicked the dirt but not out of anger towards Cas. No, he was pissed at himself for even getting his hopes up in the first place, like they were gonna have some pansy ass book club or something. Like someone would actually think he could read, much less reflect on what he was reading. That Cas would want to hear what he had to say. What was wrong with him? If Merle were still around he would laugh in his face and call him a dumb-ass.

Cas took a sudden step back as Daryl advanced, stammering, “What? No I… what’s a hick?”

Tilting his head to the side, Castiel furrowed his brow, and Daryl might have thought he was putting on a show, if it weren’t for the fact he looked so pitifully lost. He was staring, the gears clearly grinding in his head, and Daryl was about to snap back at him when Castiel finally got it.

His eyes widened, his mouth dropping open in surprise. “Oh, Daryl, I’m sorry,” he said, closing the distance between them with one self-sure stride, taking Daryl by surprise and getting far too close for his comfort, “I wasn’t implying that you didn’t read it because you didn’t understand it. I mean, I couldn’t even finish it as fast as you did.”

“Are you—what’s a hick, really?” Daryl asked as he scrutinized Castiel’s expression, taking in his worried eyes and pursed lips, and the abject confusion that seemed to radiate off him, flowing through his slouched posture and upheld hands. He had been expecting him to back pedal, everyone always does when he calls them out on their biases, but Cas had withdrawn so fast that his next words might very well be “good morning” again. _He looks frustrated_ , Daryl thought, _like he’s used to people flying off the handle at him_. Maybe he really didn’t mean it the way Daryl took it, which also irritated the crap out of him. Now, not only was he being emotional like a little girl, he was being an asshole for no reason.

“I don’t even know what that means. I’m sorry if I offended you,” Castiel grimaced, “Clearly, I offended you. You know, I wish I could say it wouldn’t happen again, but it will. I’m terrible at this, at talking to people, I always say the wrong thing or it just sounds different out loud than in my head.” He paused in his rambling to look down at the book in his hands, turning it over and flipping through it absently, and his breath caught as he ran his fingers along the margins, “You added your own notes.”

Cas bit his lower lip between his teeth, running his fingers reverently over Daryl’s tight, compacted printing, and Daryl bemoaned that they were still too close, that he was still right up in Daryl’s personal space. “It doesn’t matter what a hick is, really,” Daryl said, stammering as he took a step back.

He’d not even heard what Castiel said until he repeated, “You wrote notes in the margins.”

Daryl frowned, “Is that a problem?”

“I’ve never had someone do this before, you—you answered me, some of these are rebuttals, and this!” Cas ran his fingers across the pages, excited as a child on Christmas morning as he said, “Daryl, this—  this is amazing.”

“It’s just scribbles in a book.” God, Daryl was uncomfortable. First his outburst, and now this? Castiel was looking at him with wide eyes and an expression on his face that he couldn’t, wouldn’t look too deep into. He was already thrumming with nerves when he came over to the tent in the first place, unsure of how Cas would react to him writing in his book. Worried that he would think he was weird. Terrified that he would judge him poorly or think he was bizarre.

He had nothing to worry about it seemed. Castiel was oddly eccentric and Daryl clearly wasn’t used to that. He spoke his mind, was far too literal and seemed to have a permanent place in his mouth for his foot, but he was bashful too, and whenever he seemed to be put out or thrown off he immediately looked away, fiddling with something or another, driving Daryl crazy with his nervous energy. But when he felt comfortable he was a sarcastic, sassy little fucker who seemed to radiate cynical glee with every tilt of his head and quirk of his lips.

And last night, as they sat in his tent not speaking, there was a sense of undivided calmness about Cas, something sweet and kind as he just relaxed into the silence as if they weren’t strangers to each other. He was a beacon of whatever it was he was experiencing, like a child who felt things too strongly, who hadn’t yet been taught by the world that those feelings make others nervous, and he needs to reign them in.

He was captivating, and sent Daryl’s heart pounding in his chest, much to his utter mortification.

“It’s not nothing.” Castiel said softly, breaking him away from his thoughts, “Do you want to know why I read?”

“I have a feeling you’re gonna tell me one way or the other.”

“I don’t get people.” He couldn’t help but smirk at Daryl’s look of sarcastic incredulity, ‘no shit’ written clearly across his face, “I never have, which makes sense, since I don’t even understand _myself_ half the time. I’m not a good judge of character and I know that. But I want to be. So I read.”

Looking down at the book in his hands once more, Cas ran the tips of his fingers lovingly across its creased spine, speaking softly, “Each book is a lesson and without them, I wouldn’t be the person that I am.” Ca                s paused, sitting gingerly in the mouth of his tent, fishing out a book from his duffel before offering it up to Daryl, letting it hang there in the space between them, “And by writing me these notes, you’re helping me learn more. That’s why it’s not nothing. To paraphrase Foucault, there can be no knowledge without discourse, right?”

“You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met,” Daryl said with a sigh, taking the book from Castiel’s waiting hand and turning his head so as not to be blinded by his thousand-watt smile, “So, you want me to read this next?” Grateful for the distraction, Daryl held the book at arm’s length so he could read the cover without his glasses, “Trilby?”

“If you’d like,” Castiel looked up at him then, and Daryl was floored by how young he looked, so suddenly. There was a hot, red flush across his cheeks and nose, and he was toying with the frayed edges of his jeans absently, “Obviously, you don’t need to. But I’ve been on the road a long time, and I feel like I’ve been alone for much longer. It would be nice to have someone to talk to, and this can give us something to talk about, wouldn’t you say?”

“Sure man, whatever,” Daryl said as he tucked the book in the back of his jeans. He turned away, looking out into the trees to avoid Castiel’s gaze; he didn’t think he could handle seeing the unabashed enthusiasm he heard clearly in Castiel’s voice. He thrust his hand out without thinking, palm up towards the man on the ground, “But we gotta go, okay? I have shit to do in the woods today, and we’re wasting daylight.”

Cas took his offered hand without hesitation, allowing himself to be lifted to his feet in a way that was quickly becoming familiar. _He’s shaking_ , Daryl realized, the tremors running up his arm from their joined hands, and with a quick, backwards glance he could see that Cas was sweating slightly, his countenance still sickly and pale. He was sick, and looked an absolute mess, but that was probably due to not having eaten anything in days, save for two aborted crackers. “Let’s get you something to eat,” Daryl said, relinquishing his grip on Cas’ hand but staying close, lest he fell, “You look like a firm breeze will knock you off your feet.”

“I feel like it, too,” Cas said, pausing only to zip up his tent before stumbling towards the treeline, his legs trembling like a newborn deer. He didn’t walk so much as he bounced from object to object, chair to tent to tree, steadying himself off each of them before risking the journey to the next buoy.

It was a pitiful sight, or at least, that’s what Daryl told himself. It was just sad to watch Cas stumbling around looking like an idiot, and that’s why he stepped in, wrapping a steadying arm around Cas’ shoulder’s and letting him lean the brunt of his weight on Daryl as they cut a path through the trees. He couldn’t just stand there and let Cas suffer and embarrass himself. That was his excuse, he decided, and he was sticking to it.

Though regardless, once they were within eyeshot of the group, Daryl dropped him like hot coals, letting Cas stumble the rest of the way by himself.

“Oh good, you’re up,” Rick said as they approached the campfire, the only familiar face who approached them both as they waded out of the trees, “I was just coming to get you. Cas, how did you manage last night? You look much better.”

“Yes, thank you I’m feeling better,” Cas said delightedly, politely shaking Rick’s hand when offered, “I almost feel human again, though I’m still pretty shaky.”

“I think that’s to be expected after twenty days of walking on the highway,” Rick prodded good-naturedly, “come on, we’ll get you some breakfast and introduce you to the rest of the camp. Daryl, you’re taking Cas with you into the woods today, right?” He posed it as a question, but it wasn’t. Daryl just nodded soundlessly in response, breaking away from the two of them and walking towards the food.

Rick guided Cas over to the fire, where the others were perched eating their paltry breakfast, unnervingly silent as they watched this newcomer approach. Andrea was the first to speak, brimming with curiosity she didn’t even attempt to hide, “You’re awake!” She didn’t give Cas a moment to respond, surging up and taking his hands, politely sitting him down in her old spot, “You were in rough shape yesterday. How are you feeling?”

“B-better, thank you,” Castiel stammered, and Daryl, who had been busy loading food onto two plates, looked up sharply. Cas was stumbling over his words, and with eyes of everyone at the camp on him in an instant, he looked stiff and uncomfortable, sitting ramrod straight despite the crumpled old folding chair he sat in. His face was going beet red, and Daryl knew it weren’t from the sun; he looked as though he wanted to sink into the ground and let it swallow him whole.

But either ignoring or oblivious to Cas’ discomfort, Andrea continued her introductions. “My name’s Andrea, and this is my sister Amy,” she said, gesturing to the younger blonde beside him, who gave a friendly smile and wave, “This is T-Dog and Dale, they helped get you up to the camper last night.” Another wave, less friendly than Amy’s, and a nod, untrusting but not unkind.

Cas was introduced to Jacqui, Jim, Ed, Sophia and Carol, who sized him up with her haunting, sad eyes. Shane was next, and from across the campfire Daryl could see how tightly he gripped Cas’ hand, so hard the bones ground together. To his credit, Cas didn’t even flinch, but there was no way he could mistake that hand shake for anything other than what it was: a warning to behave himself. Rick took great pleasure in introducing him to Carl and Lori, proudly beaming when his son shook his hand politely and without prompting.

“So, Castiel, where did you come from?” Lori asked, regarding him with interest. Everyone else around the fire seemed to lean forward at her question, staring intently and waiting for the answer as Cas struggled to respond, gaping dumbly around half formed words.

He looked like he was about to cry, like he wanted to scream with how helpless he felt. Lori’s curious expression quickly fell into one of concern, and Daryl scowled as someone snickered at his silence. Shane was staring at him with one eyebrow raised and his lips quirked in a wry grin, like his discomfort was the funniest thing he had seen all day, and Dale shrugged at T-Dog when he gave him an imploring look. He was pathetic, simpering in his seat, unable to answer a simple question just because people were staring at him, and Daryl knew, were it anyone else, he’d have stepped in to rip on them by now.

He _should_ have started making fun of him, Lord knows he’d do it to Rick or Shane, but there was a part of him that couldn’t. Oddly enough, he kind of felt bad for Cas. Not being very good with people himself, Daryl could sympathize with his apprehension, and knew what it was like to freeze up and shut down once you felt cornered. But Cas had better snap out of it, he thought to himself, holding both of their plates in one hand and taking a sip of the water he held in the other, watching as Castiel shifted uncomfortably. He sure as hell weren’t about to help him.

That was, until Cas looked up and caught his eye.

God damnit, that wasn’t fair. Cas had glanced up so quickly, snapping Daryl up in his gaze before he could manage to avoid it, their eyes locking from across the fire. He looked at him with the same intensity as last night, staring at him like an animal caught in a trap, trying to restrain themselves despite the desire to flee or fight coursing through their veins. His brows tented, his big eyes wide and terrified, he silently pleaded with Daryl, trembling either from the sickness he still felt or from nerves, who could say? Regardless, he was drawn tighter then a bow string, looking a hair away from snapping, and even though Daryl wanted to stay as far away from the rest of the camp as possible, to walk into the woods and leave Cas to the wolves, he just—

He couldn’t fucking do it.

“He’s from South Dakota,” Daryl said suddenly, striding forward before he could stop himself and sitting down next to Castiel, who instantly deflated, though he was still freaking _staring_ at him with that stupid, wide-eyed Bambi face, “drove from Sioux Falls to Tennessee and walked the rest of the way.” Daryl turned and thrust one of the plates out into Cas’ direction, eager to reroute his attention to something other than his face, “Ain’t that right? Here, eat somethin’.”

“Yes,” Cas agreed wholeheartedly, taking the plate and mouthing a silent thank you, “we had a camp, but something happened and it wasn’t safe for me to be there anymore. I tried to convince others to go with me but they wouldn’t, so I stole Dean’s car and just drove.”

“Where were you driving to?” Dale asked, his eyes wide under the brim his Tilley hat, “And walking to? Did you have a destination in mind?”

“No,” Cas admitted sadly as he watched the faces around the circle fall, almost in unison, “I didn’t have anywhere to go, I just picked a direction on a map and drove. When I made it to Georgia and the car ran out of gas, I thought for sure I wasn’t going to last much longer. So I decided to just keep walking east, so at least I could see the ocean one last time before I died.” He smiled softly, “I thought I was done yesterday in the woods, I had run out of ammo and was knocked out from the sun when Daryl found me. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.”

Daryl’s face flushed immediately, and he kicked the side of Cas’ foot with enough force to knock his scrawny, knobby knees together. For a moment, he thought Cas would go on to tell the rest of them what else Daryl had helped him with last night, and panic flared uncomfortably in his chest. But apparently, Castiel wasn’t cruel. He only smiled down at his plate, going quiet as he picked at the oatmeal on his plate instead.

Shane frowned, asking, “You stole some guy’s car? Is he going to be following you? Is he dangerous?”

“He might have been at one point,” Cas said with a shrug, saying flippantly, “he’s dead now.”

“I’m sorry, Castiel.” Lori pulled her boy a little tighter, resting her chin on the top of his head and throwing a dark look in Shane’s direction. Shane physically balked and threw his hands up, but he backed off at her behest.

“It’s alright,” Cas said, attempting to assuage their worry, “honestly its better this way. He lost himself when his brother died, and he was suffering. I think that’s why he planned that suicide mission in the first place— he probably didn’t even notice I was gone.”

The conversation tapered off, everyone around the fire at a loss of what to say, uncomfortable with Cas’ glib discussion of his friend’s death, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Completely unaware of the change in atmosphere, Cas dug into his food, spooning a mouthful of bland, runny oatmeal into his mouth, and despite what Daryl knew it tasted like, Cas looked like it most decadent thing he had ever eaten. Moaning wantonly around the mouthful, he quickly scooped up another, and another, shovelling the food into his mouth with abandon, seemingly uncaring what he sounded like.

“Easy, there’s kids here!” Daryl gibed, and then quieter, so only Cas could hear, “You’re going to make yourself sick again if you don’t slow down.”

“I’m so hungry,” Castiel managed around a spoonful of oats, “Mae'n ddrwg.”

Rick raised an eyebrow at them, but thankfully didn’t question Cas slipping into another language as Daryl buried his head in his hands. _God, this guy was a pain_. Daryl waited, not trusting himself not to stare and only looking up periodically to take stock of his progress, and the instant Cas dropped his spoon Daryl was on his feet, asking “are you done or what? C’mon we got shit to do, can’t be sitting around all day.” Cas nodded and stood, excusing himself and following Daryl, who didn’t bother waiting for him to gather himself before walking away.

Coming to a decision for his own safety, Daryl figured it would be best to keep Cas far away from the rest of the camp, least until his symptoms were gone.

And at least until he could get himself under control.

When was the last time he’d felt like this? None he could immediately recall, Daryl thought glibly. Maybe when he was younger, before he’d been taught by his dad and his brother that he’d just been made wrong, before he learned to recognize that sinking feeling in his gut as something nasty and fucked up. And yeah, sometimes he’d find himself thinking about another guy, feel that whirl of attraction he never got from looking at women. Being with women was always utilitarian, necessary to his continued survival amongst the company he kept, but he managed to muscle through it, and had all but mastered the art of gritting his teeth and ignoring when he met a man he thought was attractive.

When he first saw Castiel however, when he first saw those big blue eyes, and he felt that familiar burn of heat in his veins that that told him he was wired wrong, messed up, not right, he realized in a panic that couldn’t tamp it down.

He needed to devise a plan. So he was attracted to him, so what? He could deal with that, right? He just needed to do what he did when he was younger: ignore it until it got to be too much, jerk off thinking about those plump lips and thick thighs, and deal with the shame that inevitably came after. It lasted him through his teens, and it would have to suffice now.

But as Castiel sidled up to him, smiling sunnily as he brushed his wild hair back from his sweaty forehead, his eyes bright and alive, his skin tanned and perfect in the sunlight, fucking _beautiful—_

Fuck.

He was _so_ boned.

* * *

 

Cas hated Georgia in the summer he decided, about twenty minutes into their hunt. It didn’t help that he was wearing a long-sleeved sweater and heavy jeans, but all his other clothes were filthy. Before he left, as he was exiting the tent with his knives Carol had stopped him with a shy smile, welcoming him personally and asking if he had any laundry that needed doing. He tried to tell her that he could do it himself, that he didn’t want to trouble her, but she wouldn’t hear any of it.

That left him out in the blazing sun, with no breeze as a reprieve, grumbling as he followed Daryl through the bush.

“Would you shut up?” Daryl whispered snappily, “You’re gonna scare away our dinner if you don’t quit your bitching.” He was some ways ahead, cutting through the lines of trees and moving with all the grace and elegance of an apex predator. Every so often he would motion for Castiel to stop, and he would fall into a squat, back arched as he checked and set snares, looking for tracks in the dirt.

“It’s so hot,” Castiel bemoaned, slumping his shoulders for effect and squinting in the sunlight, “how do you stand this? How long are you usually out here for?”

“Out here?” Daryl paused in examining a snare, “sun up to sun down.”

“Oh, you’ve _got_ to be kidding me. We’re not staying out here all day, are we?” Cas couldn’t fathom staying out that long— what the hell were they meant to be doing? He was still sick, and though he was through the thick of it the sun was making his discomfort all the more apparent.

“We’re staying out here for as long as it takes to catch something to eat. Now either help me, or shut up so I can get back to work,” Daryl said as he stood, clearly exasperated. From the look of his sweat soaked brow, his hair that stuck to his neck and cheeks, he was suffering from the heat too and Cas sighed as he realized he wasn’t helping matters.

“Fine,” he relented, “but you have to show me what to do. I’m not much of a hunter.”

Daryl nodded, motioning for him to come forwards. The rest of the afternoon was spent fixing traps, patrolling their section of the woods and stalking rabbits. When they came upon a particularly fat one in a clearing, Castiel stooped down beside Daryl, fighting the urge to jump when he broke the silence of their past few hours with a barely audible whisper, “You want to get this one?” Daryl shifted the bow off of his shoulder silently, gesturing it towards him.

“I’m not good with a bow,” Cas confessed, “I’m not great with a gun either. I’m better in close quarters, with knives.”

“I’ll show you, c’mon.”

“What if I miss?”

“We’ve already got four squirrels and a rabbit, it won’t be life and death if you let this one get away. Besides, you should learn. Never know when it could come in handy.”

He was right, especially if they were going to be spending their time out here, alone together. Castiel took the crossbow when it was offered to him and Daryl moved behind him, crouching down.

“Now, sit the butt against you like you would a rifle, that’s it.” Daryl’s hands moved the bow to sit against his shoulder, lifting his elbow when it started to sag. “Keep your finger off the trigger till you’re ready to shoot, just like a gun.” He spread his hands over top of Cas’ fingers, enveloping them and helping him adjust his grip, “Now get him in your sights, just like that. This bow pulls left, so try to take that into account when you’re aiming.” He ran his hands up Cas’ arm, up the side of his waist to adjust his posture, callouses scratching against his skin, his sweater, before meeting at the back of his neck and straightening his head. “Alright, you’re good. Go get ‘im.”

Cas took aim, gently squeezing the trigger, but he wasn’t paying attention. He was distracted by the nearness of the other man behind him, the puff of warm breath against the back of his neck. He could feel the heat radiating off his sun-drenched skin, could smell the heady mix of sweat, leaves and cigarettes. He felt himself leaning back, almost as an afterthought when he pulled the trigger, unconsciously gravitating rearward, wanting to immerse himself in that heat… and in doing so he pulled the bow up just a fraction, but it was enough to completely mess up his shot. The bolt flew up and over the clearing, nowhere near its intended target.

He cursed and dropped the bow as the rabbit started. The small animal, looking once, twice before scurrying off into the trees had Castiel jumping to his feet. It was fast, but somehow, he was faster and in an instant, he had pulled his blade out of its holster, took aim and chucked it. He heard Daryl gasp out his name as the blade flew, end over end through the clearing, before embedding itself in the rabbits back, right between its shoulder blades and pinning it to the forest floor.

“Christ, Cas!”

Exhilarated, Cas ran over to the rabbit with a definite skip in his step, pulling his knife out and wiping it off on his jeans before thrusting it back into his holster with the heel of his hand. He picked up his catch and held it out proudly towards Daryl, “See? Told you I was better with a knife!” He beamed, furiously beating down unwelcome recollections of a warm, broad shouldered body pressed up against his back and strong, work-worn hands on his skin.

Daryl was silently staring at him, completely dumbfound for a long moment before he broke into a grin. Slinging his bow and shaking his head, he advanced on Castiel and snatched the rabbit from his hands, stringing it up with the rest of their dinner, “That was wild, man. I’ve never seen someone take down a rabbit by throwing a hunting knife… where did you learn to do that?”

“Oh, I have my secrets. Where did you learn how to shoot a bow?” He deflected the question deftly, not wanting to lie right now, not to this man.

Daryl gave him a look that said he was onto him, but he answered his question all the same, “My dad taught me how to hunt when I was a kid. It was the only way we got to eat, with how poor we were. My brother Merle always preferred fishin’, but I liked hunting smarter prey.” He swung the length of twine with their myriad of squirrels and rabbits hanging from it, “These little guys might not look like much, but they’re a damn stretch shrewder than fish. You have to think like them to catch ‘em.”

Castiel smiled despite himself as he watched Daryl talk about hunting, about how to set traps and track small game, how to sneak in the woods undetected. What berries to eat, which will make you sick. How to tell which mushrooms will get you high, and how to use the sap of certain trees to stave off infection. This was stuff that Dean and Sam never taught him, stuff he didn’t know if they even knew. And it was stuff he was too distracted to learn once he fell, despite people in his camp offering to teach him— though he doubted anyone in Chitaqua was as passionate about it as Daryl. His eyes seemed to come alive when he talked about the woods, gesturing to all the different things he was referring to, tapping Castiel on the shoulder or physically turning him to get him to look at the banks of a stream or a nest in the trees.

Castiel chewed on the inside of his cheek, feeling a nagging fluttering grow from inside his stomach as Daryl’s hand drifted across the small of his back, guiding him along a narrow path. _Oh no_ , he lamented, _this couldn’t be good_. Every time he looked at his companion’s sharp eyes he felt a deep longing tug at him from within his chest. Whenever Daryl touched him his skin burned and shuddered from the point of contact, his breath catching in his throat. Whenever he smiled or teased him, his hands clenched tightly into fists as his fingers ached to touch him. It was all so familiar that it broke his heart.

It was the same feelings he had for Dean, when he first fell.

Castiel didn’t know he was in love with Dean before then. He didn’t have the capacity to love as an angel. But he knew he wanted him to succeed, wanted to be by his side, and wanted to help him in any way that he could. When he became human, once feelings and emotions crashed into him will all the force of a runaway freight train, he recognized that the longing he felt for Dean was different than what he felt for others. He didn’t want to run his hands through anyone else’s hair, or his fingers across their sharp jaw, their lips. He didn’t want to be near anyone else like he did for Dean, talking to them for hours about nothing and relishing in their closeness. He didn’t need to please anyone like he needed to please Dean, and didn’t want to be with them in the same way, giving all of himself to stoke and sate a desire that woke suddenly within him, like a bullet from a gun. He craved Dean, and then loved him, but he could never have him.

He tried. He really tried. And there were a few times that he got him, got him into his bed and loving him, and he held onto those memories like they were the last sacred thing he had left. Held on tight to the memory of those full lips against his own, tongues slip sliding and what he tasted like, what he felt like when Dean had moved inside of him. The warmth and comfort of holding him in his arms, surrounding every part that made him Dean and revelling in their closeness, the beauty of it as they rocked into each other, breaking against one another. Dean’s whispered confessions in the dark, Cas’ name rolling from his lips.

But he never stayed. He always left afterwards, pulling his clothes on in the wake of their lovemaking and stating that this was the last time, and always to himself, not Castiel. He never spoke to Cas afterwards, and sometimes he thought Dean had to pretend he wasn’t there. His heart would break into a million tiny pieces as Dean pulled away from him, so he would drown himself in drugs and meaningless sex with whoever would have him, as Dean went back to ignoring him, pretending he didn’t exist until he needed him for a run. Until he grew sad, lonely and desperate and crawled his way back into Castiel’s cabin at night, into his bed and Cas never quite learned how to refuse him. Not like that, at least. Not Dean.

And now that same feeling of desire and budding affection thrummed through him, followed by fear rising like bile in his throat. How could he think like this, like he could ever entertain these feelings? He could remember the trauma of loving Dean, the endless nights of somber reflection as he snuck out of some stranger’s cabin, or as he was left sated and used amid his rumpled sheets by a nameless soldier. He couldn’t do this, couldn’t risk that again, not now, especially not as he felt the telltale shortness of his breath, the tingling numbness spreading through his limbs as he unwittingly remembered things he would rather not. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was what Risa had called it, and though he didn’t understand it, he knew it when he felt it, and if he didn’t get his head on straight soon, he’d end up freaking Daryl out, ruining any chance of them remaining friendly.

So, Cas shook his head, clearing any thoughts he might be having away and counting his steps to get his breathing back under control. So, he liked Daryl— so what? If he just ignored it, then maybe it would go away? He just met him, he was nice to him, and Cas was so starved for human interaction that he was probably just confused. Maybe once he got to know others in the camp he wouldn’t feel this same kind of connection. Or, maybe it would just get worse. Either way, Cas just got there and he wasn’t going to fuck it up, not this time. This was a fresh start, a chance to be a brand new Castiel without the drugs and depravity, with a new group of people and a place to call home.

He was not going to fuck this up over a _silly_ crush.

But as he glanced up at Daryl, who was walking ahead of him, crossbow slung over his shoulder along with their meagre collection of kills, sweat beading along his brow and trailing down the back of his neck, gleaming against his sun touched skin—

God, Cas was _so_ boned.


End file.
